


Colony War

by KaraStorm



Series: Colony War [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-03 00:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 50
Words: 134,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4079998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaraStorm/pseuds/KaraStorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lt. Kirk has been given a simple mission, to clear a suspected rebel colony base. But his team fails him and Kirk must rely on his own daring and some unexpected help to save the mission. Relations between Vulcan and Earth are breaking down, threatening a three-way war. From his demoted position, Kirk must try and pull together his crew and repair a broken Federation. </p><p>This is set in a slightly alternative universe that is really close to the TOS universe. I wanted to write a younger Kirk trying to command and be a hero under much worse circumstances and pair him with a younger, more sheltered Spock.</p><p>COMPLETE</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mission Drop

"We have our orders, Lieutenant."

"I understand that, Commander. But are we certain who they are?" Despite his protests, Kirk checked the power pack on the phaser rifle he'd been handed.

Lt. Commander Pizzaro opened another case of weapons recovered from the wreckage of the USS Atahualpa. "There's been a lot of activity around WT5. And no one but the colonists would want it. If we keep wiping out anyone who tries to establish a base, we can dissuade them from trying again. Easier to hit a handful than an entire base. Don't complain."

"Can I take Red and Mitchell down with me?"

"The survivors from the Atahualpa are spoiling hard for a fight. You can pick from them."

Kirk took a deep breath and counted to five. Slowly. While he was doing that, Pizzaro said, "This is a cakewalk. I want Mitchell at helm for the asteroid belt when we check the moons for activity. And Red is leading his own party."

"We aren't going to have support overhead?"

"Captain wants to be in and out of the system in twelve hours. It's four people, Lieutenant, and not very much in the way of equipment, based on the scans. Take a few prisoners. Destroy everything else. Get a gold mark in that record of yours. It needs it."

Kirk slid a phaser reflective breastplate on to check the straps for size. He didn't bother to say that he was proud of those black marks. "No such thing as easy."

Pizarro ignored his comment and Kirk grabbed up a spine plate and followed him out, fitting it as he went. He'd shuck them off before approaching potential team members, but he had wanted first pick from the pile.

\----- 88888 -----

Lt. Kirk watched his fireteam arrange themselves on the transporter pads. Morton, King, Dervishi, and Lehner. King concerned him the most; he held his rifle as if it smelled badly and he wanted to put it down. They'd managed two quick runs in the simulator as a team and it hadn't gone horribly. With a little calm leadership, they should be in and out in good time.

The star Wolfram Thesus beat down its orange-yellow rays when they materialized. The color made the heat waves on the horizon shimmer more as if the spiky stones emerging from the sand were dancing.

"King, lead on," Kirk said. "You are on scanner."

King hesitated, but as the others put their phaser rifles at low ready, he turned and walked. He was probably safer with that rifle on his back, Kirk thought.

Lehner was a tall woman who rarely spoke. She had volunteered for landing before anyone mentioned there would be a landing. She had been the Atahualpa's nurse and was the team's medic. Kirk had put her on the right since she was left handed. He didn't like the way she couldn't seem to move forward without watching her feet.

Morton and Dervishi were in security. They seemed more nervous than they should be given their positions and that they were used to working together. "Not bots," they kept saying to each other, sometimes teasing, sometimes as a mantra. Kirk hoped they were the type who liked being nervous. They each carried a launcher on their back and one had a heavy pouch full of shells and the other a pouch full of the charges needed to activate the shells. It was a ridiculous amount of firepower to take against an encampment of four people. But they had been told to destroy everything. Sometimes that was harder than it sounded.

A low square roof came into view, seeming to float between the rocks and brush with thorns as long as an arm.

Kirk gestured for a halt and sidled over to King.

"They are inside, sir. Not doing much."

I don't like this, Kirk thought. He didn't say it. He really wanted to say it, but a team like this lived and breathed a special kind of fantasy that should not be pierced. "Let me know if they seem to spot us."

"The scanner is blocking for us, sir," King said.

"We are in visual," Kirk said. "Never assume. Let's go."

They covered half the distance and still no signs of detection. They could now see where the rocks had been leveled by phaser fire and piled up to protect stacks of equipment cases. Tall barrels stood beside the roof, perhaps for water. The cleared area was larger than it seemed on approach, at least a click in diameter. Something about how the cases were stacked among the piles of rock bothered Kirk. It looked hasty, for show.

"Who wants to scout ahead?" Kirk asked.

Lehner raised a hand. Kirk didn't want to send his medic, but King was out, and Morton and Dervishi both had haunted looks. He was ready to go himself before she volunteered.

"Give me your medkit," Kirk said to Lehner. "I'll have you covered."

Kirk followed behind her to a solid jutting rock positioned at the edge of the clearing. She stood beside him looking around at the buildings, jaw working. She fingered the stun settings compulsively. Wide. Heavy.

She whispered. "Scanner doesn't block at this range. Why don't they know we're here?"

"I don't know. Want to cover me and I'll go in?"

"At least there aren't any bots," she said. She looked right at him. "Right?"

"Haven't detected any."

"Doesn't make sense for you to go, sir." She raised the rifle and scooted straight at the wall around the corner from the darkened doorway.

Kirk kept his aim on the doorway. A breeze moved his hair where it wasn't pasted to his forehead. The stone scratched and burned his cheek. He pressed harder against it, letting the feel of it anchor him.

She slid along the wall, stopped, looked around the clearing in confusion. Kirk didn't look around, he kept his eyes on the darkened doorway. She moved slower, bent low. Looked around. Something was very wrong, but whatever it was wasn't clear from this distance. She moved along the wall to stop just beside the door. She was making a face.

She had done the best in the simulator with learning routines and used that now to lead with the phaser around the doorway before glancing inside. She pulled her head back and leaned it back against the wall, appearing stunned. She waved to Kirk to approach.

Back low, Kirk ran across the open ground. The wall of smell hit him before he made it beside her. The stink of rotting corpses. They had approached upwind on the level, otherwise the odor would have been obvious when they landed. But there had been life signs. Still were just minutes ago.

Kirk pulled his gas mask out and elbowed her to do the same. She was swallowing repeatedly beneath the mask and breathing in gulps. He returned her medkit to her and led the way in, finger on the trigger.

Status lights flickered on equipment in the corner and water covered the floor and a wave of cold air touched Kirk's hands. He found a worklight built into a generator. The light brought four figures into view, propped on chairs. Corpses, wired and tubed. Three of them were twitching. Wires had been attached to fingers and toes with gold tape. Liquids circulated. All of it to give the appearance of life on the sensors. The fourth setup had failed and the body cavity hung open like a gaping maw, liquids running onto the floor.

Kirk compulsively raised his boot from the puddle on the floor, but he had no choice but to set it back down again. He could smell the rot through the mask, or thought he could. He ran his wrist recorder over the room once, hurriedly, and gestured to back out. Lehner stopped gaping instantly and followed. Accidentally, he had chosen the right person to scout ahead with him.

Outside, he jogged back across the clearing. He could hear matching footfalls on his right. The dust was sticking to Kirk's boots, collecting in a a biological muck. He didn't pull the mask off until they reached the rest of the team.

"It's a trap, we're going to retreat to the most defensible spot we can find."

Morton made a face. The reek of death was clinging to them, apparently. All Kirk could smell was gloriously fresh air.

Dervishi said, "We burning this?"

Kirk turned back to the low building. There was a purpose to all of this. Burning it would be the obvious action.

"No. But we need to put as much distance from it as possible. We have twelve hours from drop to pickup. We need to survive until then."

"What's going to happen between now. And. Then?"

Kirk couldn't shake the idea that bots zeroed in on life signs. "I don't know. But let's move. King, scan for a defensible spot."

Morton said, "That building is steelcrete. It's pretty defensible."

"We want to divide their attention," Kirk said.

"Them?"

"Let's assume the worst." Kirk started moving, but stopped. Only Lehner was following.

King had his head bent over his scanner. Morton and Dervishi had their weapons at high ready. Sweat stood out as droplets on their faces.

"This is a trap," Kirk said. "Staying here cannot be the best option." He flipped open his communicator but there was no response. "We are on our own for ten and a half more hours. We can find a rock formation that aids the scanner blocking our life signs. Best chance we'll have, but we have to move. Now."

"Maybe we should split up," Morton said. "Defend from here. Defend from elsewhere. We're a big team."

"You haven't been in there," Kirk said. "We're going. NOW."

They were going to disobey. And they weren't going to care that they did.

"I'll die before I get captured," Dervishi said.

"If your goal is to die, then you will likely get that," Kirk tried to sound kindly saying that, but with his anger, it sounded menacing.

King said, "Fuzz on the scan, 34 mark 1."

Everyone turned that way even though there was nothing to see this far away. The bots had scan blockers but when there were a lot of them, they showed up as haze on the scan when signals bounced between them, confusing the fake reflections.

"God ate a rutabaga," Dervishi said.

Morton bent over, laughing hysterically. He pinched his eyes he laughed so hard.

"I refuse to be out in the open. Morton is staying here, I'm staying." This was Lehner. "We can phaser-burn that place clean enough to hunker down."

"King?" Kirk asked the last of the four.

"I think I'm with the others, sir. Sorry, sir."

"Give me the launchers," Kirk said. "If I'm going to be playing defense, I want the heavy weapons. You are going to be defending in too close of quarters. That's an open field weapon."

Kirk walked over and held out his hand for the bag of shells, then for the bag of charges.

"Try hurrying while you are in the middle of your court martialable offense."

"The only court I'm worried about is the court of death, sir." Morton said this with a twisted gleeful look on his face.

With everything slung over his shoulders, Kirk departed at a rapid clip, running in the direction of the fuzz on the scan. Maybe he should have stayed and browbeat them. If the scanner had been clear, he might have. As it was, if they were unreliable, then they were worse than useless. It felt natural to lead, but only if people wanted to be led.

If he could live to inherit yet another black mark, he'd be willing to accept this one too. Starfleet was stretched so thin, it's not like they were going to boot him completely out.

Kirk ran hard enough that his lungs stopped burning and he lost the sense of his limbs. At a ravine, he skidded and slipped, banging the launchers on a boulder. He ignored the strain in his quads as he pushed to his feet and kept running. At the next rise, he stopped. He had a good view over a wide plain and a rocky outcrop on two sides. He swung everything off his numb shoulders and placed it between two large rocks where the dust would be less likely to cover everything and where he had a slit to fire through. He used a phaser to level off a lower rock as a work area and began twisting the caps off shells and placing charges into them. He had a row of six before he stopped and made sure he had a working launcher.

One of them was jammed. The other seemed fine. This made him feel less guilty for taking both of them.

Something trailed brown and black smoke through the sky above him. Kirk put his hand on his brow to shade his eyes. A ship was burning up in the atmosphere, crumbling into geometric comets. Much too small to be the USS Sanchez. Kirk felt the terror that clutched his heart ease. At least they still had a ride out.


	2. Bots

Kirk lined up another charge and slid it into the explosive case of a live shell. There was dust rising just beyond the horizon. It hung in the air, not drifting.

The sound of an overloaded impulse engine in reverse made Kirk raise his eyes to the sky. He lifted a phaser rifle at the same time, but the shape was of an escape pod, not a robot delivery shell, so he took his finger off the trigger.

It landed beyond the rocky outcropping Kirk was using as a bulwark for his right flank. He went back to to installing charges. It was such an odd event that it could not be an enemy.

A figure appeared in a hooded tunic climbing over the rocks with agile ease. Kirk had his hand phaser on his belt. He left it there, still assembling as rapidly as he could. Directly ahead, just over the curve of the earth, there was the glint of metal between the brush and rocks. His heart began to pump harder. He could estimate the odds of surviving this and they weren't good given the amount of dust getting kicked up.

"There were more of you before," the figure said as it strode up to him. He pulled his hood back revealing Vulcanoid features. He stared off across the flats at the approaching robots.

"They didn't like the lost cause."

"May I assist?"

"You most certainly may." Kirk picked up the broken launcher and held it out. "Fix this if you can."

The Vulcanoid turned his attention to the device, eyes and fingers moving rapidly over it, moving the parts that moved, taking it in. He picked up a broken sling handle Kirk had been using as a tool and pried at the latch.

"What are you defending? May I ask," the stranger said.

"At this point?" Kirk loaded a launcher tube. The front robot was almost in range. There was no point in a warning shot with robots. "I'm probably just defending the deserters."

"Noble of you."

Kirk's heart thrummed so forcefully he couldn't think over the noise of it in his ears. "Remind me of that when we survive this." He raised the launcher. "Firing," he said. The force knocked him back so that he stumbled, but after a pause there was a burst of dust followed by the white flare of a powerpack getting ruptured.

"Good, they had to switch back to lithium. We just might have a chance."

He'd seen images of the dead from Hickory 5. Everyone in Starfleet had seen them. Limbs neatly sheared off. Slices of those limbs left in neat rows. Phasers cauterized blood vessels so this could go on a long while without dying, or even losing consciousness. Robots programmed to torture, just to make a point, to drive others to retreat. Which Kirk's comrades had done, so one had to give them credit for effectiveness.

The Vulcanoid picked up an already primed shell. "May I test this?"

"Sure." Kirk reloaded his launcher and waited for a good target. "These are supposed to be sling mounted but those are broken. Watch for the kick."

The stranger aimed high. Kirk almost mentioned that was unlikely to work, but remained silent. The kick wasn't nearly as bad at that angle or the Vulcanoid was better prepared for it. There was a whistle of a shell descending, then a much larger puff of dust.

"Missed," Kirk said.

The other stared off into the distance, as if in a trance. He snapped out of it. "No. I do not believe so."

"Do you have a name?" Kirk asked. He waited for a full glint of metal, led slightly ahead, tracked it, and launched another. The robot spun around, but there wasn't a flare.

Kirk didn't get an answer. More dust was appearing on the horizon. "How many are there? You had a view from above."

"One hundred fifteen at this point."

"That's not good." Kirk slid another charge into a shell. "I'm James. I need to call you something. Can you at least tell me why you can't tell me your name?"

"Because I should not be here." The stranger fired another and this time there were two white flares.

"Given your willingness to work with weapons you are either a Militant or a Romulan."

"I am neither of those. However, your association is obvious unless that starfleet lieutenant's uniform belongs to someone else."

"It's mine."

A minute later, Kirk said, "What shall we call you? 'Ears?' No, too obvious."

Kirk loaded and launched. 'Hephaestus?' You did just get thrown out of heaven."

He looked from the many glints of metal clearing the horizon down at his paltry array of shells. His rational mind was telling him this was it. Either come up with another plan or settle into the idea of death.

"Was your ship attacked?" Kirk asked.

"Not exactly."

"What are you doing here?"

The Vulcanoid put down the launcher and knelt before the case he had slung over his shoulder. "I need to capture one of the robots."

Kirk shot and missed. He was letting himself get rattled, which if he was going to die anyway, irked him all the more. "Capture? I'm going to call you 'Monastery' because you look like a white monk in those robes."

The stranger raised a brow and glared.

"Or tell me your name. Or any name." Kirk fired a direct hit this time, but they were minutes from being overrun. The entire horizon was full of advancing metal, and dust.

Kirk muttered, "All that machinery just to kill a few humans on the wrong planet."

"Let one get close."

"I don't have any choice. In a moment you can have a hundred of them."

"A hundred is not desirable. One is."

Kirk laughed. He felt maniacal standing here against these odds. He fired again, trying to hit more than one at a time. With the dust he couldn't tell if he'd hit anything at all.

Two smaller robots were approaching more rapidly, cantering while firing. Phaser fire struck the rock before him. Just luck it didn't strike any of the shells because that would have been the end. Kirk fired from between the rocks. Phaser fire streaked across the opening, striking the launcher. He jerked back, dropping it. It had been reduced to slag. He scrambled to pick up the other one, loaded it. He could barely feel his hands he was so hyped up with fearful energy.

"Well, Monastery, been nice knowing you."

The stranger took the phaser off Kirk's belt and aimed it.

"Their plate armor is impervious," Kirk said, jerking his head back as another well-aimed shot came between the rocks.

The stranger fired, low, right at a rapidly moving joint that exposed inner workings for a split second as it articulated. One of the cantering robots fell.

"Take down the other," the stranger said, skirting low and fast around the rocks protecting them.

He was actually going to run onto the field, completely exposed. Kirk leapt up, laid himself across the shells and fired, point blank, at the robot galloping straight at him. The blast singed his hair, deafened him.

Kirk raised his head. The stranger kicked the robot's stabilizer with enough force to make a ringing sound, sending its phaser fire to melt a snake of glass into the dirt. He had the phaser aimed but crouched to fire with high precision with one foot on the robot's torso. The robot's legs jerked like an animal. Kirk loaded again, looking for the next most useful target. He assumed the Vulcanoid wouldn't make a mistake no matter how much chaos was going on, and fired. Another satisfying white flare went up.

The stranger reappeared beside him, dragging the thrashing robot behind him.

"You weren't joking," Kirk said.

With surgical precision, he cut off the robot's remaining limbs. He had the access plate off and was pulling out circuits. He pulled out wires and plugged those into the box he'd brought.

Kirk kept loading and firing. Two hundred meters. Unlike humans who sometimes hesitated when their comrades went down, robots just kept coming.

One hundred meters.

Twenty robots would be on top of them in seconds. A flash. Make that nineteen robots. What a demeaning way to go. Kirk wished for a knife, and an enemy he could sink it into.

Two robots came over the rock, scattering the uncharged shells and makeshift tools. Kirk swung with the launcher at the side of one, but the limbs had hold of him, his wrists. He kicked. They had hold of his ankles. He couldn't spare a glance to see how his companion fared. He was suspended, slung by his arms and legs. He arched his back, thrashed. Metal grippers cut into his wrists. He was pulled upward, shoulders straining painfully. He could hear the whine of a phaser powering, felt the heat of a powerpack burning his thigh, felt a searing pain on his hand and the scent of cooking flesh.

Then nothing. Kirk had squeezed his eyes shut without intending to. He peeled one eye open, then the other. He had an underside view of three bots, their armored limbs and the glint of actuators within. The orange light of the local star glared off everything, blinding. Silly, they really should be painted matte. A charged phaser coil glowed red just above Kirk's hand, slicing. The back of his hand smoked. The images from Hickory 5 seared across Kirk's inner vision. He thrashed again, helplessly.

Kirk was released so suddenly he thought falling was a death blow. But the rocks he landed on hurt so badly, he knew better instantly.

He looked up into the coffee brown eyes of Monastery, bent over his equipment, wires and flashing status lights snaking around his hands. He seemed strangely unmoved.

Kirk looked over his shoulder at the frozen bots straddling him. Around them, at the field of frozen bots. Some had fallen like toy figures, lacking active orientation circuits.

"You took control of them?" Kirk felt an overwhelming sense of disbelief about where he was and his bodily wholeness in that place he couldn't believe he was.

"Not precisely."

Kirk stared. "Vulcans don't have brown eyes."

Monastery shifted his head in surprise.

Kirk smirked. The robots were starting to move again. Kirk scrambled to pick up a phaser rifle, but the bots walking rigidly in the direction they had been heading before, passing them by. Unaware of them.

"What did you do?"

"I released a virus on them."

"That's been tried."

"It is not an ordinary virus, and I released it on the scout bots providing guidance to the local swarm. That made them more susceptible. They transmit code, but only under certain circumstances."

Kirk crabwalked backwards to get out of the way as a larger sentinel robot came over the rocks. It too moved on. Kirk crouched in the dust, feeling like a small child at the circus watching large predators harmlessly pass by in a parade.

Kirk pulled out his communicator, switched hands, shaking his right one which stung like hell. "King, Morton. Respond." After a pause. "Anyone."

There was nothing.

Kirk said, "You have a scanner I can borrow?"

The stranger handed over a small device with a long handle, with an interface in Vulcan.

"At least you have Vulcan equipment," Kirk said. He could read a few words on the screen and pressed the button for area scan. The bots showed up as static at ground level, and as he rotated the aim, he thought he could pick up the bunker. But he couldn't figure out how to change the scan frequency to check for life signs. He pressed a few buttons, but only a small blip appeared and then disappeared again.

He handed it back. "Can you find the nearest life signs? That way. Might be blocking."

The stranger studied him closely as he accepted the scanner. While he scanned, Kirk picked up the unused shells and chargers, blowing dust off the ones that fell on the ground before bagging them, uncharging the unused one's he'd assembled.

"There is only one weak life sign. In a structure in that direction."

"Let's hope their blocking is working." Kirk started walking.

"Unlikely. I accounted for that. I disabled my own blocking momentarily to verify."

Kirk turned back when the Vulcan stayed put.

"We should stick together. You are going to need a ride out."

"That might be difficult on a Starfleet vessel."

"I'll take care of it," Kirk said. "Come on."

Kirk hurried, pushing through fatigue and pain. The Vulcan took some of the equipment, which helped and he didn't seem to notice the weight.

At the bunker clearing, the Vulcan stopped, stumbled. His face showed expression for the first time, a mixture of alarm and shock. Emotion made his face look much younger, boyish. Kirk realized he had no idea how old he was.

"Stay here," Kirk commanded. "Actually back up and find some cover, just in case."

The pile of containers was knocked down, split open. Bot delivery shells lay scattered in the dust around the debris. On the other side by the doorway were craters and scattered bot limbs and cracked torso plates and lots of rods and cables.

Kirk slid his gas mask on. The smell was muted but still bad. The inside of the bunker was entirely blackened by phaser fire, likely how they had made it habitable, by carbonizing everything. Three bodies in starfleet uniforms lay propped against one wall and the fourth, Morton, had fallen where he crouched in the middle of the room. The body in the corner was torn up badly, blood blending with the carbon on the floor.

Lehner was alive.

Kirk wanted to carry her out, but she was too tall for him without using a fireman's carry which given her torso injuries would likely kill her.

"It's Kirk, can you hang on?"

She made a throaty noise. And after some encouragement, started speaking. "The bots blew up. You cut them down and they blew. Took out King."

She moaned. Kirk found the medkit and gave her a dose of the idiot mixture that anyone in the field could give, which was tri-ox, painkiller, cell rejuvenator.

There was no sign of bots getting inside.

Kirk said, "Ship's coming in a few hours, hang on."

She nodded. "He missed."

"Who?"

"Morton. Said it was better this way. There were hundreds coming."

She faded out then. Sometimes the painkiller did that. If he really wanted information he should have held back, but he couldn't do that.

Kirk stepped back from her and studied the room. His strategic mind told him what happened but he traced it out three, four times before admitting it was correct. Morton had executed the team to keep them from being tortured.

Kirk shouldn't have left them. Or, more accurately, they should have stayed with him. Although, who knows how that would have played out. One of them might have shot the escape pod out of the sky and they'd all be dead, or worse, still alive.

Kirk crouched before Lehner again. Terrified of the scent of death or not, he'd have to get the Vulcan to help carry her out.

She wasn't moving. He found the scanner in the medkit and confirmed her heart had stopped. If the ship were here they'd have eighteen minutes to save her. Kirk looked at the scanner's chrono. They had six and a half hours before pickup. Kirk tried his communicator anyway.

Nothing.

He patted her shoulder and stood up. He took phasers and kits, waited the remaining minutes beside her, then departed.

The Vulcan stepped out of the shade of a hollow saying, "I beg undeserved consideration for my weakness."

"It's all right," Kirk said.

"The life sign ceased while you were present."

"I gave her a painkiller, but sometimes that depresses the system too much. She wouldn't have made it until the ship returned." He started walking, in no particular direction. Just away. As he walked he worried that the Vulcan thought he'd killed the last of them. Well, he had, but not intentionally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually write action, so if you are a real action fan and I'm messing up, please drop me a note, I'd love to have some feedback. Thanks!


	3. Missing in Action

Kirk hiked toward a large rocky outcropping on a rise. He wanted a view of things. The orange star was lower now. Days were long on WT5, fifty-seven hours, so they should have eleven hours of good light remaining.

Kirk's first view over the rise made his heart pound and his limbs sing. The glint of metal plate, marching. But they were marching away, converging on a spot over the horizon.

The Vulcan said, "The ship recalled them. The virus will jump to the ship unless they detect it in time, but by now it will look like native coding. So detection is unlikely. The bots optimize their coding every time they operate in the field. It is the reason for their success with such crude technology."

Kirk sat on a rock in the shade where he could see the field ahead. Again the view made his pulse race.

Spock said, "You have a medical kit."

Kirk looked down at what he carried. Pulling all the cutting straps off his shoulders gave him immediate relief.

Kirk said, "Explain to me what you let lose."

"Your hand is badly damaged."

Kirk look at the back of his hand, at the blackened bones and cords revealed in a thin line. It hurt unbelievably to try to straighten his fingers.

Spock pulled the kit over and looked through it, talking as he did so.

"The virus is simple in execution although complex in code. It is eighteen parts that network within an infected device. It finds code in the device that it likes and adapts it to its own purpose. So within minutes, the infection itself would be difficult to remove without replacing all of the device's memory."

He pulled out a can of dermaskin, set it aside, and kept digging.

Spock went on, "All devices are networked, and likely the bots are blocked from moving code to the ship at the higher function levels, but that does not mean it is blocked at the lower hardware levels. This virus uses the channels for locating power sources for recharging, for example, or those for maintenance and inventory checks, even if the device isn't explicitly designed to need them."

He gestured for Kirk to put his hand down on the rock. He seemed to be trying to avoid touching him. Cold spray went on the back of Kirk's hand. It tingled, stung, then went numb.

Spock went on, "It is better if a particular device is not explicitly designed for using these hardware channels and the channel has been neglected. That often means there is no security on it. The colonists copied older standard components with a lot of these forgotten functions on them."

He sprayed Kirk's hand again. Moved his head side to side to examine it.

Kirk said, "But it can infect the ship? What about life support?"

Spock shook the can of dermaskin. "The virus attempts to detect essential systems, but it is fuzzy in that determination, otherwise it is a vulnerability for the infection as many systems could be made to look life-essential and avoid infection."

"So it could jump to a Federation ship."

"Keep your hand still."

Kirk had gestured with it. He put it back down. Spock sprayed a neat layer of pinkish-brown over the wound.

Spock said, "Indeed. If they have made similar design mistakes, it can jump to a Federation ship. I would hope they are more thorough than that at system design."

Kirk tried to imagine the possible cascade of system failures, planet to planet.

Kirk said, "But it can't disable anything right away or the infection will be limited."

Spock packed the medkit back up. "It doesn't disable. It makes functionality erratic in statistically unpredictable ways, which is more costly over a longer time period. What you saw initially with the robots was temporary code that executed so that I had a chance of surviving and returning home. I was intending to do so."

The last glint of metal was over the horizon, still raising dust which glowed in the low angled light.

"What happened to your ship? Did you accidentally infect it?"

Kirk received an annoyed raised brow for this.

"Seemed a logical guess," Kirk said. He touched the dermaskin to test that it was dry. The wound was still numb. It looked like a mechanical slot in his flesh.

Spock said, "My family took control of the ship remotely. The only circuits I could override were those for abandoning the ship, which are not under central computer control. The only way to make it to the planet where the robots were was in the escape pod. And in order to have the right trajectory, the ship had to lose orbital attitude and velocity, which is part of the survival override to prevent the escape pod burning up on atmospheric entry. I aimed for your location because I deemed the odds of getting assistance higher than not."

He said all this with no emotion.

"You stole your dad's spaceship. Are you sure you're a Vulcan?"

"No. I stole the ship of an acquaintance of the family. My family ship has too much custom programming for my purposes."

Kirk tried to imagine knowing anyone with an interstellar spaceship growing up in Iowa. "You must be pretty well off." Kirk looked the Vulcan over. His robes had become dusty, but it only highlighted his elegant, calm demeanor. "I'm guessing that's why you don't want to tell me your name. You wanted to be in and out, no one the wiser."

"Essentially. My father has made that most difficult to achieve."

They sat in silence. Kirk wanted to make camp, wanted to phaser a shelter to feel less exposed, but he wanted to wait for the robot delivery ship to depart to avoid attracting too much attention.

His stomach growled. Kirk pulled out an energy bar, broke it in half and held half out to the stranger.

"I do not require sustenance at this time."

"I won't eat my half unless you eat yours. It's vegetarian, go on."

The Vulcan didn't move. Kirk wrapped it back up and put it away. He ignored his stomach, but it grew louder over the next half hour.

"You are as stubborn as any Vulcan." The stranger held out his hand for the bar.

Kirk smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Kirk slowly relished his half of the energy bar. He could eat all seven in his bag and still be hungry.

Eventually the colony bot ship departed, two hours before the Sanchez was due back.

Kirk worked slowly at carving a shallow cave with the phaser rifle. He could pull his hand closed with only minimal pain, but not open it again. The activity calmed him immensely. The Vulcan stood beside him, watching out over the plain below with his scanner in hand.

"Did you happen to see the USS Sanchez in a wide orbit, checking the moons and the asteroid belt?" With the power adjusted just right, the phaser barely left scorch marks on the rock as it carved.

"I did not. I was distracted and avoiding detection myself."

"Understandable."

The two hours came and passed. Kirk got up and paced over the arched rock surface of the hill, straining his tired ankles doing so. The air was growing cooler. It felt refreshingly like water. Kirk would kill for a shower. He shucked off his phaser-reflective plates, set them neatly aside, hoping he'd trigger having to pick them up again right away to beam out.

"Your ship is overdue, I assume?"

"About five minutes, yes."

An hour passed.

Kirk thought about Gary, imagined him navigating the asteroid belt, heading this way. He couldn't picture him dead. No reason to with just an hour's delay.

Wolfram Thesus turned out of view and three quarters of the sky became a rusty orange.

The Vulcan said nothing. He went higher on the rise and used his scanner for a while. The sound of an impulse engine made Kirk's heart twist with homesickness. But it was just the escape pod rising up the slope. It settled between tall rocks with a grinding crunch. The Vulcan removed a few things from it and shut the lid again.

He returned with a heavy blanket and a kit.

"I did not have time to prepare gear and the pod's contents are inadequate. The family never took their ship outside our star system, and apparently saw no need to keep it stocked."

"You disabled the beacon before you landed, I assume?"

"I did. I did not want attention."

"Until we're sure our foes are gone, it should stay off."

Darkness came on. The Vulcan wrapped up in his blanket. Kirk was still warm enough given the extra padding he wore to protect from the plate straps.

Kirk divided another energy snack. He wanted to sleep and a bit of food would help a lot with that. The Vulcan took it. Kirk suspected he only pretended to eat it, but he was too tired to care. He curled up using his arm as a pillow, his communicator in his breast pocket, and fell immediately asleep.

Kirk awoke to darkness. He pushed himself to sit up. A small light came on and was placed at Kirk's feet. The events of the day returned as disjointed memories. Kirk wandered off to take care of his aching bladder. There were nine bright moons in the sky, showing an array of half to sliver based on their position in the sky. It was beautiful. And with nighttime lasting over twenty one hours, he'd have a lot of time to appreciate it.

The Vulcan appeared demonic in the low, bluish light. Kirk sat beside him, arms on his knees. "What's your name?" Kirk said.

"I continue to not wish to give it."

"It occurs to me that Vulcans and Romulans have black, dark violet, or if they are old, blue eyes. But not brown. That makes it easy to figure out your identity. Therefore it is logical that you simply tell me."

"You know quite a bit about Vulcans."

Kirk looked out at the four moons visible from where he sat. "I feel like we are headed for a three-way war. That's what the rebel colonists want. The Federation and Starfleet failed to protect Vulcan two months ago. I'm sorry about that. We really are stretched thin, for ships and personnel. But that seems a poor excuse. With the Militants operating, and I know they are a handful of Vulcans, but humans don't see it that way. That handful easily represent all of Vulcan as potentially war-like. It sets things up even better for another front. As does Vulcan arming itself for defense."

Kirk turned to watch for a reaction as he spoke. "I assume that an attack reaching Vulcan is the reason you took action."

The Vulcan nodded. He didn't react other than to grow distant.

"So I've been doing as much research on your people as I can. I feel like the only way to avoid another war starting, is to understand."

Kirk let silence in for a while before saying, "I think you might have let loose more than you realize, but I certainly understand you doing it. I'm certainly happy to be alive."

Kirk sat back, crossed his legs, ignored his complaining stomach. "Name?"

"I am called Spock."

Kirk scratched his ear. The name wasn't familiar but Kirk's memory wasn't serving him well at the moment. "Well, thank you, that's helpful."

The night stretched long. Kirk dosed, easily driven into inaction by hunger.

The local star rose, made the left hand three quarters of the sky into a globe of orange sherbet. Kirk stood and stretched. His hand felt like he tore it open again as he did so, but the dermaskin was still intact so he ignored it. He tried not to think about Gary.

"We are going to have to start thinking about longer term survival," Kirk said, staring down at his red haloed shadow. "Did you pass that survival test they give all Vulcans as children? How old are you?"

"I did pass it. And I am nineteen earth years old."

"That's like fifteen Vulcan years."

"If you prefer."

Kirk didn't prefer, but for some reason his sense of guilt preferred. "We should get moving. Water first. Then food."

Water was easy enough. The planet lacked microbes harmful to humans and Vulcans. As the morning commenced they made another shelter where it would be cooler for Kirk during the day and closer to water, down in a ravine.

Food was going to be a problem.

Spock fingering a long thorn. "These shrubs likely bear fruit but we are months out of season for it,"

"There must have been grazing animals at one time, given the thorns."

"The plant is imported. I do not have the proper database in my scanner, but it is a common plant grown for living fencing on colony worlds."

They continued surveying. Kirk checked his communicator often. It was always dead air.

Desperate for a distraction, Kirk said, "I've been trying to learn Vulcan. Do you have the patience to teach me a little?"

The local star had inexorably traversed the sky and hung fifteen degrees above the other horizon when Spock stopped and said, "It has been thirty one hours since a rest period. You are quite fatigued and require sleep."

This felt like a command and Kirk realized from the oddness of it that he'd been ordering Spock around all day.

At the thought of resting, Kirk's head grew unbearably heavy. "Maybe a nap."

He was clumsy by the time they made it to the ravine shelter. Kirk fell directly on the dirt and fell directly into sleep.

Kirk awoke to his stomach clawing at him. Spock was sitting on the far side of the shelter, watching him. Kirk rolled onto his back. The sky was orange. A long, long day had passed and still no ship. Kirk pulled his kit over, pulled out the second to last energy snack, broke it in half and held half out.

"That is illogical. I refuse to consume what you should be consuming."

Kirk wrapped it back up and put it away.

"You are a foolish human."

Kirk pushed himself up onto one elbow and with a smile said, "My my. Temper."

He might have slapped the Vulcan. His eyes went wide, then sharp for an instant, then he returned to unemotional.

Kirk combed his hair back with his fingers. "Sorry. I'm treating you like you are crew assigned to me. Hidden emotions and motivations are deadly to a mission. I prod at them without thinking about it."

"I should not have reacted thusly."

"Clearly, humans, in some way, are a sore spot for you. But not at all the way I'd expect from most aliens. And I notice you are pretty familiar with humans at a casual level. You accommodate me in lots of small ways I don't think you are aware of. That and your eyes leaves me to guess that you are not one hundred percent Vulcan."

There was a pause. "That would be correct, biologically."

"Ah, but culturally, you are one hundred and ten percent Vulcan, as befits someone who has to exceed expectations to even measure up."

Spock didn't respond.

"As a farm boy from Iowa trying to make it in a world full of West Coast, interstellarly cultured locals, I actually do understand, at least a little, what that's like. I'm not saying it's a fault of yours, just reality."

Again Spock didn't respond.

Kirk's stomach ached, his limbs were shaky. He stood and looked around at the undulating landscape, half hidden in shadows.

Spock said, "I can survey during the night-time hours while you rest."

"No. We absolutely should not separate. We only have one scanner."

"I can modify the medical scanner to locate a lifesign at a distance."

Kirk dug it out of the medkit and handed it over. "Still. Stay in range of hearing at all times."

"As you wish." Spock pried the case off the scanner in a way Kirk was certain would break it, but it popped open and the electronic guts of it unfolded in his hands as if more than ready to reveal itself to the Vulcan. "You are the hungry one."

"I am, but I'm hardly at risk of starving to death." Kirk chuckled. "I only had so many snack bars because I love snack bars."

Spock stepped back, used the scanner, stepped back farther. Then returned and handed it to Kirk, who powered it down and put it away. Spock remained standing just before him.

"I wish you would consume the energy bar," Spock said in a tone of voice Kirk had not yet heard him use. It sounded parental.

"Only if you'll eat half."

"Why?"

"Because that's the only fair way. Fair is important to me."

"But I require less. Your analysis should include that reality."

"You don't require that much less. You are simply able to ignore the discomfort. Both of us are drastically shorted on nutrients. Your nature doesn't allow for you to go completely without, indefinitely. Physics would argue otherwise."

Kirk sat back, made himself comfortable, looked up at Spock. "I'm the one arguing reality reality. You are arguing some kind of reality of the mind."

Spock's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "That is interesting. An anti-philosophic viewpoint."

"Depends on your philosopher."

Spock returned to his corner, wrapped up in his blanket, and sat cross-legged on the ground. "It is fascinating how much you challenge me."

"Do I? Well, at least I'm not boring you."

"You cannot do that. You are familiar with death and fighting with the potential to die and that is fascinating."

"I get the sense you grew up a bit over protected."

"I do not know."

"If you don't have enough observations to compare to, that implies you have an intentionally limited experience."

Spock fell thoughtful. "Your manner of speech is older than your apparent age would predict."

"I'm twenty four. Earth years, of course."

"Is your rank typical for your age?"

"Not unusual. My rank was higher before I got demoted. Lt. Commander was a little atypical at my age."

Spock tilted his head in question.

Here on this planet, after surviving, Kirk could feel none of the sting to his pride. He even laughed lightly at how free he felt. "I have a bad habit of disobeying orders I think are a bad idea."

"Understandable."

"Maybe so. But I lost my team to the bots because my team did exactly that to me. So not a good thing." Kirk repeatedly tapped his head back on the rock behind him. "In fact, I probably didn't fault them enough for it because I understood. That was a mistake."


	4. Hunger

The moons grew brighter in the sky, grew craggy, circular features on their faces.

Kirk said, "Tell me more about this virus you wrote."

"It is an adaptation of code I started when I was eleven. At that time I resisted doing the exercises I was given. I wanted to write a program that overcame all other programs. A program that did its own programming by exploiting code it found. We are set to compete against each other in our lessons and I was determined to prove something."

He paused. "When I was older, I was encouraged to work on artificial intelligence, but I did not like that sort of coding. I wanted to work on something with the elegance of biology. The mindless reordering of genetics."

"You wrote an actual virus."

"Indeed. That was not the difficult part. The difficult part was representing any target system in the same terms so that the virus can utilize the program machinery it finds for its own purposes, just like a virus forces host cell rna to do its work. That is my program's weak spot, if it has one, that it had to have at least a few cases hard coded into it. It was not possible to create a fully generic representation of any adaptable computer system so that the code could mutate as I wanted it to."

"And it won't work on a non-adaptable one. Say, a simple embedded system."

"Correct."

"And the rebel colonists built adaptable bots."

"The systems they built upon have such features natively, and the wide range of environments they must operate in make it essential that the bots learn and share learning. Sharing parameter data would not suffice. I have a theory that the colonists didn't know how to avoid building in this manner, that in fact, the default systems they designed from are responsible for their success, not the colonists' intentional programmatic design."

Kirk felt chilled. "You think the robot army built itself up into the success that it is?"

"Not in an artificial intelligence sense. There is no AI present. It is simply biological style optimization run over enough generations of programmatic change. Every time one bot has a better outcome that learning is transferred to the others. And not just at the individual level, also at the network level, in the very way they organize themselves. Witness the two scouts who sprinted toward us. They were gathering data, trying a new program out. The network assigned them that task, therefore their learning, or in this case, my virus, was easily transferred back to the swarm from one of those units."

Kirk said, "No wonder we've been having such a miserable time of it. The Federation should have every advantage of resources and technology, but we are slowly falling behind."

Daybreak came on in earnest. Kirk stood before the high shelter, looking out. Spock was studying samples of dirt he'd collected on their surveys.

Kirk was feeling less hungry, as if he'd passed through the pain of it as through a curtain and now glided over it, untouched. Mostly. Spock had found a salt deposit so Kirk no longer felt dizzy when he drank enough water to make his stomach feel full for a few minutes.

Kirk said, "Can you make the escape pod orbit once with the scanner? There was another landing party, four thousand clicks to the east."

"It will be nearly impossible to rendezvous with them."

"I am curious if they are all right. But I don't want to put the equipment at undue risk either."

"I can lighten the pod to the minimum so it will need very little power to complete this task."

Spock did basic maintenance on the engines of the pod and rigged the medical sensor into it. Kirk helped as much as he could, determined to stay out of the way. Spock was clearly accustomed to working alone. A few hours later, Kirk watched the pod as it faded to a speck on the horizon. He wasn't feeling hopeful about much. Learning that Red and his team were okay would help Kirk's outlook a lot.

The pod returned within the hour, not orbiting, but making a round trip.

Spock moved his fingers over the controls of the medical scanner. Minutes passed. Kirk moved over beside him to look too, but the screen was updating too rapidly for Kirk to interpret it.

Spock said, "Your estimate for the distance away. How accurate is that?"

Kirk thought back to their briefing before the landing. "Four thousand one hundred eighty clicks. Ninety mark three."

Spock raised a brow, then returned to the sensor. After a few minutes, he shook his head. "There are no life signs. This device is not sensitive at range, however. And it would be easy to block. Under current atmospheric conditions your communicator should be in range at least one quarter of the time. But you have received no response on it."

Kirk climbed away over the uneven rocks, partly because he needed to move but partly to keep his emotions to himself. He felt bleak. He stood where the rise formed a ridge that fell away into a valley off to the south. He was becoming familiar with the barren alien landscape and that did not improve his mood.

A pebble sliding into a crevice made Kirk turn. Spock had followed him.

Kirk said, "What are the chances that your virus is the reason the Sanchez hasn't returned?"

"I have already computed that. I give it less than two percent chance. And that is with some assumptions applied. One: that they encountered the robot pickup ship leaving orbit and engaged with it. Two: that they either communicated with it over an insecure connection capable of not just data, but code. This would be a gross security risk and I think it doubtful. Or that they brought aboard equipment from that ship."

"I doubt they would do that. But I suppose it's possible." Kirk sighed. "I want to hope the virus is the reason. At the same time I want to gut punch you for making it the reason."

Spock took a step back.

Kirk laughed without feeling it. "Sorry. I won't hit you. Realize that normally, if lunch is an hour late I get moody." He felt badly for threatening violence on his only companion, and a kid, no less. His mood slipped farther.

Spock said, "If you instigate violence you will lose rather badly."

Kirk's face broke into a grin. "Promise?"

Spock's eyes studied his own. "That is not a rational response."

"Yes it is. If you feel confident to stand against me, then I won't feel guilty for letting that slip."

"Ah. I see. Yes, I am quite confident. My family traditions keep alive several martial arts that would otherwise have been lost."

"In that case you can be confident I won't be hitting you. I don't have the strength to anyway."

Kirk looked out again, memorizing the view for lack of anything else to do. "Assuming that the Sanchez cannot show up, for whatever reason. Starfleet will send another ship, but it may be weeks. Or months. This is how the rebel colonists get us. They make us make bad decisions, like assuming this was an easy mission for a single small ship. They always seem to have more resources to throw at us than we expect. And are picking us off one at a time, which stretches the fleet even thinner."

Kirk rubbed his face, his eyes. Somewhere deep inside himself was that optimism that usually never failed him.

Spock said, "I have an experiment, but it needs to be conducted in the ravine where there is more moisture."

Kirk dropped his arm. "Let's go then."

Spock collected things on the way, branches, dirt from crevices in the rocks. Kirk started collecting similar things, hooking the thumb of his useless hand in the edge of his shirt to carry them. It felt good to have something to do. It kept his brain from feeling like it was vibrating in his skull.

Spock pounded the twigs into a mulch, mixed it with different soils. He could have been in a lab for all the precision he was using. He gave Kirk the task of hollowing stones into shallow vessels with the phaser.

Kirk longed to sleep, but there was a lot of daylight left. He was having flashbacks to his academy survival trip. He'd been insanely hungry then too, but he'd known it had an end, a return to a real bed. Lots to eat. He had stopped fantasizing about a shower to cut down on the number of things he longed for. He wondered if he could roll in the dust and feel cleaner, and the itching would stop. Dust had gotten under his padding, was abrading his neck. He wore it loosely, but that made it worse since it collected more dust. He'd have to try beating it on a rock.

They went deeper into the ravine, carrying a vessel under each arm. Kirk hadn't even asked what they were doing. He amused himself by not asking until they stopped.

"There are spores for several species of edible mushrooms in the soil. Likely imports from other colony worlds."

"We're growing mushrooms."

"Under the right conditions they will emerge quite rapidly, especially some of the hyper-modified varieties I believe I am detecting."

Spock arranged the vessels where there was moisture and indirect light.

Kirk said, "Is there anything you aren't an expert on?"

Spock finished and stood before saying. "I am not an expert at detecting sarcasm." He began walking away.

Kirk followed. "That wasn't sarcasm."

"It did not sound like flattery."

"Spock." Kirk grabbed his arm to turn him around. Spock flailed his arm wide, freeing himself. His posture remained alarmed, only calming by degrees.

"I'm sorry," Kirk said, feeling his shoulders fall.

They were in a narrow warm spot of the ravine, out of the wind. The heat made Kirk want to lay there and soak it up like a nutrient.

"I'm not at my best right now. I wasn't sarcastic or flattering. Just impressed by how much you know. That's all. I'm sorry I touched you. I'm an idiot. I do know better."

Kirk kept talking, seeking the magical combination of words to get back to where they had been. "I'm not sure how I offended you just now. I didn't mean to. I like you."

Spock studied him. He nodded. That was a concession. Kirk shut up then. They walked in silence back to the shelter.

In the warm shade, Kirk curled up with his shoulder pads as a pillow and tried to sleep. He swam in utter exhaustion but didn't drop off into blissful unawareness. He watched the light shadows moving across the ravine floor, closed his eyes, watched the shadows.

Despite the daytime heat, Spock sat with his blanket over his shoulders as he scanned samples of dirt.

Kirk groaned and sat up. His head lolled. He had some salt and water and felt a bit better. His body ached when he sat up; it ached when he lay down. He rested on his back, fixating on the arch of carved rock. The sweeps from the phaser had left little grooves that seemed to be trying to impress some abstract meaning on his brain.

"I do like you," Kirk said.

After a minute Kirk turned his head to look at the Vulcan.

Spock continued working. "I do not know why you would."

Kirk put his hand behind his head to prop it up. His arms felt half numb but ached despite this. He could have been drugged, or ill with something nasty. The idea that mere food would cancel out his physical problems irked him.

"I don't need a good reason. You are likable."

"Your choices in companionship are somewhat limited at this time."

Kirk smiled. "They are. But even so. I'd chose you over most of my shipmates if I was faced with an actual choice."

Spock looked up. "That is not logical."

"I don't care. Even so I think I can argue it is. But I don't have the strength to argue."

"You have two energy bars remaining."

Kirk sat up. "Want half?"

Spock actually rolled his eyes, mostly sideways, but it made Kirk smile more. He fetched out the open snack bar and handed half over.

"Eat yours first," Kirk said. "I don't trust you."

Spock did.

Kirk nibbled on his, one tiny morsel at a time. Saliva poured into his mouth, flooding out of his lips, made each morsel float on an ocean. He might have spent half an hour eating two and a half bites.

Kirk said, "Now you want to argue?"

"If you wish."

Kirk propped himself up on his pads, legs stretched out crossed before him. This laziness was like shore leave only with much less food and booze.

"I think you are . . . let's see. I shouldn't use human terms." Kirk closed his eyes, trying to make his brain work. He wanted to say 'kind' but couldn't reframe it in safe terms. "Good at handling stress. You are easy to work with, and that's considering we've never worked together before. You are-"

"You are not trying to flatter me?"

"I don't get that. Where does that come from?" Kirk sat up. He felt drunk the way sitting straight was so difficult. "I don't mind you asking. I just don't understand that misunderstanding. It worries me. Frankly."

Spock relaxed. Kirk could see it as a process. He didn't speak while it progressed.

Kirk eventually said, "So. I understand you don't want to be flattered. That's perfectly acceptable. I'm not doing that. I'm telling you how I perceive you. That's all. Some people like receiving positive reinforcement."

Spock looked down at his work.

Kirk watched him. He looked vulnerable. Kirk could think of only one explanation. "Are you that unaccustomed to being told you did something well?"

"I am generally behind my peers."

"So what?"

"It is not acceptable in my family."

Kirk stared. "I'm probably going to say something I'll regret here." He sorted through things to say because 'why the hell did they mix with humans in that case' was all he could think of. "I just wonder why don't they logically expect you to be at least a little different." He huffed and leaned back on his pads. "So many parents have children and expect clones."

Spock's gaze was piercing. "Did your father expect a clone?"

"I don't know. He died when I was young. I didn't see him much. He was like me now. A Lieutenant in Starfleet."

Kirk shrugged. "I see it too much. We get a lot of kids come through. That's part of my job. I sort out who is really capable of what. Half the time, people are struggling to separate out what they want from their parents' expectations when suddenly that oppressive control is half a galaxy away. It's refreshing and surprising when it's not the case."

Kirk spoke into the ensuing silence. "I disappointed the hell out of my mom. She sure as hell didn't want me in Starfleet."

"Understandable."

Kirk waved his arms. "Spock, you're-" He almost said 'beautiful'. Kirk leaned his head back and talked to the rocky ceiling above. "I shouldn't say any more." But after a moment he added, "You are a nice companion to be stranded with. Let's just leave it at that."

Kirk closed his eyes. He swam again in fatigue, but didn't sleep. A long time passed. An hour maybe.

Kirk sat up suddenly. "Anything on the scanner?"

Spock picked his scanner up and moved it around. "Nothing."

"Sorry. I may be starting to hallucinate. I thought I heard something."

"There was nothing."

Kirk curled up on his side this time. He felt he weighed twice normal the way his bones ached where they pressed into the ground.


	5. Sharing

Kirk must have slept. Next thing he knew the sun was gone from the ravine floor and the wind had risen. Sleep didn't make him feel any better. Spock was scanning the rock wall of the ravine, looking up and down at it. He turned as if sensing Kirk's attention.

Kirk forced himself to sit up and drink water. This made him need to find a private spot. He returned and stretched despite his body insisting he lay down again and contemplate never suffering through getting up again.

Kirk said, "Should we move to the other shelter. Would you be warmer?"

"It is damp here. If you are fit to travel I would prefer the other."

"Okay, let's go."

Walking helped. Kirk stretched again when they arrived. He felt compulsive about it, as if he could ease the ache in his limbs if he tried just once more.

The sky grew orange. Kirk flipped open his communicator. He experienced a forgotten memory of being a child with a toy one of these. It also had dead air since Sam had broken it the day Kirk had received it as a present. That hadn't stopped Kirk from having imaginary conversations with his father over it. If he died here, he wouldn't even have managed to outlive his father.

Kirk closed it, found Spock observing him.

Spock said, "I do not think I can assist." Then he seemed to regret speaking and looked away.

"I'm horrible company right now." Kirk laughed faintly. "I don't have any defenses against the past. Against myself, really."

"I believe that is why most disciplines of the mind require fasting to fine tune one's control."

"Not a hobby I'd want to pick up."

That was at least the second time Kirk had seen that. If he sunk low enough, Spock felt compelled to reach out a bit in a non-Vulcan way.

Kirk said, "I take it your mom is human."

"Yes." After a minute, Spock said, "I revealed that somehow."

"It was subtle." Kirk gave him a kind smile. "Can't help but like you more for it. Something we have in common."

"I had not thought of that."

It grew dark. Kirk had never before felt so much numbness and so much aching, so much fatigue and so very wired and awake. Nearly a hundred hours had passed. There was nothing more to do.

By the glow of four moons clustered at ten o'clock on the horizon, he split the last snack bar and knelt before Spock to hand him his half. He wanted to touch him, probably would have if he had not seen the outcome of doing so earlier that day.

"No reason to save it," Kirk said. He ate his half normally, sitting there on his feet.

Spock held his half out. "I wish to give this to you."

Kirk's eyes were wet and he had no idea why. Or he had too many ideas why. It was every helpless feeling piled one atop the other. Every kid who didn't return home, every father and mother disappearing forever, every lover left forlorn. In alarm he turned away, got to his feet, strode over the dusty rocks, down, down, until he slipped into a hollow he couldn't see in the overlapping-shadowed blue dimness. On newly strained ankles, he climbed up on a flat boulder and sat looking out over the plains. A ringed moon was rising, pink and yellow.

He glanced over his shoulder. Spock was standing on a high spot ten meters away, watching over him.

Kirk had control of himself moments later.

"Damn gorgeous nights for a hell hole," Kirk announced to the empty world. He glanced back. "Sorry about that back there. I'm really not myself."

"Lack of cellular energy weakens emotional control."

"Yes. I also need something to do. A purpose. Surviving with you here isn't hard enough maybe."

"You will not last a month without food."

"Aren't you Mr. Cheerful?"

Spock approached, joined him on the boulder. "I was trying to provide you with a purpose."

Kirk wished he could blow his nose. He sniffled instead. "Not falling apart is apparently too hard already."

"You seem sufficiently recovered."

Kirk shook his head to clear it. "Yeah. I don't know what happened. Won't happen again."

"That does not logically follow."

Spock was sitting closer than expected. His robes glowed bluish in the moonlight where the dust hadn't darkened them. If Kirk leaned, their shoulders would touch. He puzzled this. It seemed an extreme version of Spock's reaching out instinct. Although kids would do a lot of things to make a parent feel better if they worked out how. A human on Vulcan would have needed more than average subtle support from a child banned from giving any.

Kirk rubbed his face with his left hand, pressed his fingers into his aching eyes. He tried out scenarios where Red's team had been picked up but theirs had not. Possible. Not likely. He had failed his own team in the meantime. There must have been something he could have done, although he didn't know what. Maybe they'd convene a hearing and maybe he'd find out what he should have done. He'd honestly like to know.

"At the risk of bringing out your emotions again. This is yours." Spock held out half of the energy bar.

Kirk huffed, but he took it. Spock would certainly prefer to buy a bit less waterworks in exchange for a few calories. It was only fair to let him do so.

"Thanks." Kirk ate it, licked his dirty fingers which tasted vaguely of energy bar. "I will never badmouth synthfood again. No, that's not true. But it will be a few days before I do."

They sat like that for a long time. Kirk passed in and out of shame at his state.

"You shouldn't need to take care of me." Kirk accidentally spoke aloud. His mind wasn't sorting out thoughts from speech.

"That is good, as I am not able to do so."

Kirk turned to him. "That's not true. You are doing as well as anyone I've ever worked with. Maybe better."

"I am pleased to hear that. I am concerned that you need assistance."

"Sorry." Kirk shook his head. "I must seem like an erratic, dangerously emotional human to you."

"I have not classified you that way."

Kirk wanted to stand, but he was still intrigued by how very close Spock was sitting to him, so he stayed put.

Kirk said, "I'm used to taking action, and there isn't any to take. I'm not good at being helpless. Or hungry."

Spock looked out over the plain below. "Neither is an acceptable state for a thinking species."

Kirk studied Spock's features in the moonlight, the curve of his ear, the matching lift of his brow. His hair was mussed from the perfection it had when he'd arrived. It made him both more human and more exotic.

Vulcans knew when you were looking at them. Kirk turned back to the moons. The largest was just rising. It was spotted green and orange. Above it, the largest artifacts in the asteroid belt hung in a line, blazing on one side, black against the sky on the other.

This was why he was in space. To see these alien landscapes.

"What a beautiful sight."

Spock looked around as if trying to figure out what he was seeing. Kirk almost patted his shoulder. He had lifted his hand, and instead used it to comb his own hair back, despite the pain this caused as he'd raised his bad hand.

The next day as it grew warmer, Kirk followed to the ravine shelter on a brain locked into autopilot. Spock kept turning to check on him. When they arrived, Spock made sure Kirk sat where the shade would last. He fetched out the medkit scanner and held it beside Kirk's torso.

He dug around in the medkit and pulled out a hydration tablet.

"You are low on ions. Have this with some water."

Kirk obeyed, surprised when his hands moved the way he wanted them to. They could belong to a puppet. He chewed on the tablet and sipped water around it and felt immediately better.

"I want to check my experiments and may be out of range of hearing." Spock put the mediscanner in reach but waited, crouched there. He looked worried.

Spock's concern hit Kirk's pride. He sat up better and nodded. While Spock was gone, he got up, stripped off his pads and shirt and hung then in the sun where the wind could help freshen them. He lay on the ground and rubbed his bare back side to side on the dirt. It felt as good as he had imagined it would.

The crunch of gravel precluded Spock's return. He had a sack that he placed on the ground. He fetched Kirk's phaser and brought over a large flat rock.

"I will have to return to replenish the nutrients in their soil to get more tomorrow," he said. He phasered the rock to glowing hot and placed on it two neat rows of mushrooms, then covered it with a rock cut into a dome.

Kirk could smell them toasting. It wasn't hunger that he felt at the scent, it was an existential out of body experience. His soul went to a place where tables were heaped with buffet.

Spock placed a smooth rock before Kirk with half the mushrooms. Kirk bit into one, careful of the steamy heat inside it. He had never tasted anything so amazing.

"Spock, you are truly phenomenal."

Spock looked up, studied him. Assessed him. Eventually, he said, "They are, unfortunately, not high in energy."

"I don't care."

Kirk ate as slowly as he could, picking up each umbrella shape and taking multiple bites of it. But they were soon gone.

He curled up in his usual spot, comfortable with the warm breeze on his bare skin, and feel deeply asleep.

Kirk woke to his name. He was dreaming that he was running through the northwest thirty, the hilly field where they always grew corn. Robots were chasing him, robots that were half machine, half bloody limbs. He was going row to row, changing direction, trying to stay out of sight, certain that since he knew the place better, he could evade death.

"James?"

"Just a dream," Kirk said, pressing his fingers into his eyes. "It's nothing."

"Then I made a mistake in waking you."

Kirk lowered his hand. Spock was kneeling beside him, a shadow with the bright daylight behind him. Kirk put his hand behind his head and considered what he could perceive of Spock's features.

"No, a mistake is losing your entire team because you don't have proper command over them. Waking me is trying to be a friend. That's almost never a mistake."

Spock sat back on his feet, hands on his thighs. He looked comfortable in that position. "I do not comprehend friendship."

"Fair enough," Kirk said.

"It does not disturb you that I cannot understand?"

"No. You're a perfectly acceptable companion the way you are." Kirk feigned distracted casual conversation, but he was watching for a reaction. What disturbed him was that such a being could have zero sense of his own worth, that his people always beat him down by holding up a scale he could never measure up to. To the point that simply telling him he'd done a good job was assumed to be sarcasm. Of all the myriad personality traits Kirk had encountered in new recruits, he'd never encountered this one. It made him want to hunt down Spock's parents and give them a good shake.

Spock remained beside him, thoughtfully staring at a spot on the ground. Kirk hoped he was re-evaluating things.

Kirk said, "You're very good at handling stress. It would take years to get a human to your ability level. And often humans end up broken getting there."

"It is simply that I do not let emotion determine the path of my thoughts."

"Whatever it is, it works."

Kirk wondered how many compliments he could get away with.

After a long space, Spock said, "I notice that you treat me as if I were in Starfleet."

"Sorry about that. Just the way I'm used to working. I wish you were assigned under me."

Spock's eyes locked on Kirk's, evaluating them.

"I really am saying that honestly," Kirk said.

"It is impossible."

"To join? Vulcans are not strictly banned. There just aren't any. At least that's my understanding. If there were to be one; it would be someone like you."

"I would have to accept being disowned by my family."

"You wouldn't be the only one."

"Do you speak with your mother?"

"Not often."

Kirk put both hands behind his head and relaxed his neck while ignoring the stab of pain in his hand. "I sent her my first two medals. Then my messages were ignored. Turns out that was the wrong way to handle it. But I let my pride get in the way of handling it properly."

"May I ask further?"

"Ask away."

"Is it just the risk to you that upsets her?"

Kirk gave a thoughtful grunt. "You know, I honestly can't answer that. My mistake early on was assuming I knew. Now I know I have no idea beyond that it wasn't the future she wanted. Maybe that's enough. She's pretty strong willed."

"Not unexpected."

"It isn't?"

"I estimate that you inherited that."

Kirk laughed. "Yes."


	6. Ancient Epic

In better spirits, Kirk led the way to the high shelter for the evening. His body had become number and that was an improvement. He watched Spock settle in his spot for the local star-set. The Vulcan was getting shaky. Kirk looked away assuming Spock would loathe to be observed in a less than perfect state.

Kirk said, "We may have to risk turning on the beacon on the escape pod."

Spock stood and did that. "It is not subspace," Spock said. "It will . . . could take days or weeks to reach a receiver on a spaceway."

Kirk nodded.

That night was the longest yet. Kirk couldn't sleep. He paced around their rise, stopping sometimes to enjoy the moons. It was the last pleasure left and he was going to make the most of it despite the risk of falling from weakness.

When he returned, he found Spock standing outside the shelter, monitoring him. He put the scanner away in a large pocket of his robe and stood with his hands behind his back.

Spock said, "Come daybreak, I should scout westward. There is a different vegetation zone there."

"We can send the pod to scan," Kirk said. "Separating is not wise."

Kirk sat outside the shelter, but out of the wind. The moons seemed just overhead. He might hit his head on them if he stood quickly. He hoped Spock would join him as he had the night before.

Eventually, Spock did. Sitting almost as close.

The silence went from enveloping to oppressive. "I'm really glad you're here. I'd hate to be alone."

"I assume that is the reason for your kindness."

Kirk felt that cut him in half. "No," he whispered. "It isn't. I can both be glad I'm not alone and like you too."

Kirk barreled on, "You're a beautiful being, Spock."

Spock's head jerked toward him and Kirk thought he could feel him growing antsy and uncomfortable.

Kirk went on, "I wish that you were assigned to me. You'd be the most valuable crewmember on whatever ship you were on. And that isn't exaggerating. If you are falling short on Vulcan, then Vulcans must be unbelievably intelligent. "

Spock looked away.

Kirk lifted his hand, let it hover over Spock's arm. Spock turned to him, looked at his hand. Kirk withdrew it.

Spock looked over the plain again. "We need a better plan."

"Smoothly done," Kirk said. "Yes, we do. Run a lot more scans from aloft tomorrow, while we are still strong enough to move camp if it'll be worth it."

Morning came. The sky made Kirk's vision see blue in large patches as he tried to move around. He didn't see it as sherbet anymore but as a harbinger. So much warning color couldn't bring anything good.

The pod returned. Spock studied the scanner, sitting directly in the hot light. Kirk suspected he was getting extra susceptible to cold. Kirk stripped off his shirt and sat next to him, as close as Spock sometimes sat to him. It gave him an odd comfort which he was more than willing to relish in his current state.

Spock shook his head. "It is grasslands. Possibly a few tubers that would require processing to be made edible. It is many local days distant by foot."

"Can the pod carry someone?"

"Its power circuits are almost burned out. I made an aggressive landing."

"I heard it when you came in."

Spock's face showed expression, regret perhaps, then returned to normal. He continued paging through the scanner data.

Spock said, "This is reminiscent of ancient epic poetry. To survive the undefeatable army and succumb to hunger."

"Ancient Vulcan poetry must be pretty depressing."

Kirk was certain Spock almost smiled. "Yes, it is."

Spock put the scanner aside, somewhat forcefully. Kirk put his hand out, held it over Spock's forearm.

Spock looked down. He didn't move his arm out of reach.

Kirk took this as acceptance and let his hand rest there on Spock's sleeve, relaxed. "You reacted badly when I touched you last time."

"You startled me. I did not have my mind shielded. No one has ever touched me unexpectedly before."

"Never in your entire life?"

"I do not believe so."

"That's a sheltered existence." Kirk looked around. He took firm hold of Spock's arm. It felt like the only real thing on this planet. "Look at this place. Spock, when you decide to leave your comfort zone you don't mess around."

"I did not believe there was any choice. If it works to hinder the rebel colonists, I am satisfied with the sacrifice. Although I have encumbered you with my actions."

"Although I'm not as sanguine about this virus, my life is yours. I shouldn't be here to debate you over it."

Spock looked at him, his eyes went over Kirk's features, over his bare shoulders. With reluctance, he said, "I am weakening and seeing things in a more human way."

"That might be irksome, but it's a good learning experience."

"I will borrow your phrase, and say that I am not myself."

"You could leave Vulcan anytime you wanted, correct?"

"I would lose a great deal."

Kirk held his arm tighter. "You have to lose something, often, to gain something. And look at where you are right now. You were willing to lose your life. Can you lose more than that?"

Spock sighed. Kirk had not witnessed that before.

"Being disowned by my family would be. Difficult. Perhaps more difficult than death. I would have to meditate on that."

"Do so."

Kirk let go and stood up. He wanted to pace, but he needed to preserve energy until it was time to move shelters and perhaps eat a few mushrooms. His stomach, which had given up on growling, did so.

Somewhere, up in the sky, was the Sanchez, and the rest of Starfleet. To never return, to never move between the stars, to just see the moons at night, it would be more empty than starving to death.

Kirk shaded his eyes. Heat waves made the scrub plain waver.

Spock looked up at him. "Are you an unusual human?"

"I don't know. I try to be."

"I think you are far outside the norm. It is a factor."

"Down here, we're all the same."

Kirk checked that the weapons cache was still intact where he had stored it. He was tempted to not move it, but that was a weakened, fuzzy headed notion. He put on his shirt, and his pads and systematically put everything together. It looked like a very heavy pile and he was in no hurry to carry it, so he remained standing there, staring at it.

Spock raised his head and turned it with precision in an animal-like motion as if detecting something. Without hesitating, Kirk snatched the hand phaser out of the pile at his feet. He unlocked the stun setting and shoved the power to high.

Kirk held the phaser pointed at the ground. "What is it?"

Spock pushed to his feet, turning his head again. "A ship." He took up the scanner but lowered it again immediately.

Why wasn't he scanning? "Spock?"

"The engines are modified with a triple coil that at low power causes a peculiar oscillation."

Kirk heard it then too. The rumbling whirr of impulse engines at low power.

Spock said, "It is my family's ship."

Kirk put the phaser back on stun and hooked it on his belt. The ship became a dot and sank into view and landed down on the plain. It was a swept-back design with oversized boxy engines on each side. Thick welds showed where it had been assembled.

Spock moved downhill over the rocks with alien agility. Kirk followed, falling far behind. The ship's ramp opened. Spock stood at the base of it, arms at his sides.

Spock was arguing with someone inside, an elderly Vulcan, who looked up sharply at Kirk when he approached. Kirk stood at the opposite corner of the ramp from Spock, not wanting to intrude, or appear too familiar with Spock.

"Your father said nothing about passengers," the old Vulcan said, in Vulcan. Kirk's tourist Vulcan lessons supplied the translation.

Spock's reply wasn't comprehensible, but he looked stubborn, and suddenly much younger.

The old Vulcan went away inside.

"I am refusing to depart without you," Spock said.

"I appreciate that." Kirk found this funny. "Rules of the spaceways still apply," he said happily.

"Indeed, they do. But he is the kind of servant who performs tasks precisely as they are given. One must be careful how one gives them."

Time passed. Now that rescue had so unexpectedly arrived, Kirk felt too weak to hurry. Spock steered the escape pod down and settled it inside the ramp area, strapping it down to the ramp so it would be raised inside as it closed.

"Getting rid of the evidence?" Kirk teased.

"The few remains of my ship will be difficult to identify since Vulcan does not share its registry with the Federation."

Kirk decided to leave the weapon's cache to avoid any difficulties with his already grumpy host. He had everything that mattered on his back. He sat in the shade of the ship and waited.

Spock said, "I would get us something to eat, but I do not wish to go inside and risk appearing to relent without assurances."

The old Vulcan teetered to the top of the ramp and gestured for them to enter.

Spock worked the ramp controls and gestured for Kirk to take a jumpseat. When the hatch closed the darkness closed in completely. A red image of the open hatch was burned onto Kirk's retinas, making his vision worst right where he needed it most. He took one step towards what had looked like a cargo strap in daylight and the ship surged upward. Kirk went to his knees, his stomach felt like it sank even lower. The normal thrill he felt at this was muted by what felt like further bullying by machinery.

The acceleration leveled off. But was still about three gs. Kirk failed to push himself up. A hand grabbed his uniform shirt and slid him toward the bulkhead. The ship began to vibrate as it hit atmospheric turbulence. With lots of help, Kirk climbed up onto the lowered jumpseat he found by hitting his head on it.

Kirk managed the straps, managed the chest clasp and pulled the straps taught. The seat swung outward, so the force was on his back. That was much better. The lighting came on, better revealing how much they were vibrating.

"Hell of a ship," Kirk said.

"It is a rebuild of two other ships, keeping the engines of the much larger one, so it is rather overpowered on impulse."

"I would say."

"He did that to make a point." Spock said, still upright. "He knows you are fragile."

Kirk turned sharply. Spock appeared to rethink his words.

"You perhaps do not consider yourself fragile," Spock said.

"No. I don't."

"I see."

The impression of gravity eased to something reasonable.

Spock unhooked the straps from his shoulders. "I will run some scans to look for your comrades."

"I'll come."

Spock pushed Kirk's jumpseat back level with his foot as Kirk unhooked. He led the way to the deck above, which was just as stark as the cargo area, no padding on corners and only basic panel plates. Extra reinforcing came up through the deck in inconvenient places and continued up through the overheads.

Spock pulled a panel down from the ceiling. Using one hand, he worked the display with familiar ease. Gravity continued to fade. Kirk followed Spock's example and also grabbed hold of a strap and hooked his toe on a floor strap to keep himself in place. Spock rotated the monitor so Kirk could see the scan as well.

"At the approximate coordinates you indicated there is evidence of a firefight, recent glassified rock, burn marks." He pointed. "One body."

The elderly Vulcan turned in his seat to look back at Spock.

"No life signs?" Kirk asked.

"None. I've programmed a scan reflection off the cliff-face here." He scrolled the display to a flurry of closely spaced lines. "So I do not believe sensor blocking is the explanation."

"What happened to them?"

The display changed, showing orbital projection, which updated multiple times a second. "I have no theories."

Outside the ship's portals the sky grew dark and stars appeared. Light gravity came on, supplementing the acceleration. It felt like one third earth normal.

"Can you scan-" Kirk began.

Spock said, "Sten, take us on one complete orbit outside the fifth moon."

The ship changed course and the planet's face slid across the portholes. Kirk held tightly to the strap as his body swung out. He wished he felt well enough to truly enjoy this ride.

Kirk watched the screen, starting to get a better sense of the display's coding. They reached orbit and Sten put them under full power. Each moon passed by out the portholes. Some barely filled one, others took minutes to pass the ship.

Eventually, they came back around to the bluish moon where they'd started. Kirk relaxed his hold on the strap to better see the display as Spock stored and reviewed the data.

"Orbital debris is quite old, indicated by the randomness of its movement," Spock said. "No ionizing or signs of recent energy bursts."

They hit warp without warning. The wave of it went through the ship's subframe and Kirk's relaxed hand ripped from the strap. He was caught hard by Spock's arm across his chest and his hooked foot. The pressure increased. Even half starved, Spock was this strong. How strong was he normally?

The wave force released them. The ship settled to smooth with a low engine hum. Spock still had an arm around him.

Sten turned his head around and said something in spitting anger. Kirk caught 'corruption' 'alien' 'offworld' but the diatribe went on from there. Spock's face transformed into stone. Kirk could feel Spock's defiance building from a seething energy. That energy had hold of Kirk, was tapping into someplace deep within him to shield out Spock's own uncertainties. This was what telepathy felt like. Kirk could feel Spock's mind working and he seemed to be working toward disobedience stemming from injured raging pride.

Kirk silently projected at him, "Don't overdo it."

Spock's mind calmed, gave the impression of something sinking into viscous liquid, sending ripples out that attenuated immediately.

Kirk now felt only offense from him, and some disquiet at sensing another in his thoughts. But still he held onto Kirk.

In Standard, Spock said to their pilot, "Don't throw the human around the ship if you don't want me to catch him."

After a pause, he let go of Kirk and pointed at a seat that could be folded down. Kirk did so and sat back with the full relief of his tired body. He rubbed his arms to ease something like chill, but the ship's air was warm.

Spock descended a ladder and returned minutes later. He sat in an adjacent seat and pulled a table out from the wall.

He peeled open two containers of white paste and handed Kirk a spoon. He seemed to be avoiding Kirk's eyes.

"These are the foods my mother finds most palatable."

"I'll eat anything."

"Taste it before you say that," Spock said.

Kirk laughed. Stress poured out of him, making him laugh more. Sten turned and spoke loudly over the engine hum.

Kirk tried to read his face. "He doesn't like laughter."

"He speaks Standard just fine." Spock spoke to his own food packages.

"He was speaking to me?"

"Yes. I do not wish to repeat it."

Kirk sobered. "He is at helm. That gives him the right to have the bridge as he sees fit."

Sten grunted.

Kirk dipped the spoon and licked it off. It tasted like bitter passionfruit and unripe artichoke along with the mulch underfoot in a pine forest. Despite his body demanding he swallow, he had to work hard to do so.

"Drink this. It is not as palatable but it will ease your system into food better than the manirgt paste."

Kirk took the glass which contained a puree. It smelled like carrot and paint thinner. "Less palatable." Kirk wanted to laugh again. To be so hungry and have so much difficulty eating. "I miss your mushrooms."

Kirk ate more paste and washed it down with the puree. Either he grew accustomed to it, or his body's instinct for survival overrode his palate, because he ate everything in front of him.

Sten spoke. Spock translated, finally meeting Kirk's gaze after an entire meal of looking down. "My father sent a message asking for your personnel id so that he can inform Starfleet that you are aboard."

Kirk licked the spoon, even though it was clean, and put it down. He gave Sten his number. "I also need to file a report."

"There is a cubby that my father uses as an office. I will show you."

Kirk stood and looked across the controls, and out the portals. "How fast are we going?"

Spock looked over Sten's shoulder. "Nine point oh two."

"Warp nine?" Kirk stared again out the portals and swallowed his surprise. The two of them seemed to think nothing special of it. Kirk had never personally gone faster than six point three, and that had been exceptional.

The 'cubby' was a closed off space between one of the reinforcing struts and the outer skin. It was the size of Kirk's shared quarters and had its own large view portal. The desk was designed for zero g. Kirk slid his foot under the strap just in case Sten tried anything. Spock powered up the monitors and brought up an interface where he could select a subspace communications protocol.

Kirk asked, "How did your family get to us so fast?"

"The ship entering atmosphere sent a standard radio signal back to its owner that was picked up by a relay on a navigational buoy. Then it was sent on by subspace."

"You owe someone a ship." He gave Spock a sympathetic smile.

Spock nodded. "I will leave you to your report."

Kirk called him back at the door. "Spock, don't burn bridges if you can help it. I couldn't help but notice that you are trying to get your footing with regard to your family. But it's not an all or nothing process."

Spock stood there, considering his words, or considering him, Kirk couldn't tell which.

"I see." And he departed.


	7. Oasis

Kirk called up a transcription function and began recording. Usually, recording the intro section let him relax into the right mode for retelling events, but this time he grew more lost as he went.

"Stardate two forty five point six. Location: just departed Wolfram Thesus system. Lt. Kirk of the USS Sanchez recording. We were ordered down in two fireteams to Wolfram Thesus Five to clear two apparent rebel colony bases." He listed all the personnel involved. "What we found were false lifesigns generated by enervated, refrigerated corpses. Concerned we had arrived at a trap, I ordered my team to vacate, intending to use the false lifesigns to divide any robot attack that may be forthcoming."

Kirk hit pause. Took a deep breath.

"Upon detection of a mass bot landing twenty clicks away, my team mutinied, refused to vacate. There was no other shelter in the area other than the rebel base building. I took the heavier munitions and proceeded to a point where I could defend the base from attack. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the base debris itself had bot shells concealed within it. While I was using light shells against the oncoming dropped bots, the rest of the team were battling the previously concealed bots. Apparently seeing the cause as lost, Morton executed the surviving members of the team. King was already dead due to trauma from an explosive bot and Lehner survived until I returned to investigate."

His narrative had become nonlinear. Fleet hated that. He didn't back up and rerecord, he went forward.

"I had found a protected position from which to launch a repulsive attack with the light shells the security squad had brought along. I survived the assault and the bots were recalled to the ship. A passing privately owned vessel detected my repeated attempts to communicate with the Sanchez and evaced me. I do not know the fate of the other fireteam. We had no communication with that team. One body was detected at their last location as well as signs of a fight.

I do not know the fate of the USS Sanchez. There is no sign in orbit of its destruction. End of recording."

So much happened in wartime that Kirk expected his falsehoods to be accepted. Survival was order number one. Adherence to strict fact was perhaps order number twenty.

Spock met him on the way to the bridge. "Would you like to shower?"

"Shower?" Kirk wondered if he had possibly misheard and didn't dare hope.

Spock led the way aft. The ceiling sloped higher this way and they went up a few steps to where two staterooms took up the two aft corners of the ship. The one on starboard was softly appointed.

"My mother insisted upon certain amenities."

"She's a wise woman."

Spock turned on the shower which was barely large enough to stand in. Kirk shucked his dirt-caked uniform and looked for a place to put it down where it wouldn't leave dust behind.

"I will put those in the refresher. The shower water circulates through a filter, take as much time as you like."

"Thanks."

Clean and human and wearing the robe he had found hanging outside the shower, Kirk returned to the bridge.

Spock was on scanner again. "Would you like more to eat?"

"Always. Thanks."

Kirk followed him this time, unable to bear being treated as a passive guest. In the cargo area, Spock opened a storage container with myriad square food packets in neat stacks.

"Perhaps this," Spock said, lifting a small package out. "There is unfortunately not much here you can eat. My mother has acclimated herself to many foods that would be grievous for you to try the first time."

"Is there an ancient poem like this too?"

"To be rescued but go hungry?" Spock asked.

Kirk laughed. "Yes."

"I apologize."

"It's all right. Hardly your fault and not really important in the larger picture. At this speed we aren't far from a base where you can drop me off."

"You are being taken to Vulcan. It is thirty point two seven hours away at our current speed."

Kirk looked up in surprise.

Spock said, "Is that acceptable? My family do not wish to do otherwise than have me brought home. The situation of friendly versus not is less clear for us than for you. There is also the risk of the ship being appropriated if the situation grows difficult."

"I can understand that. Yes, that's acceptable. I just assumed Sten would want to ditch me at the first opportunity."

Spock appeared relieved. He took out two more packets and closed the container.

Kirk ate something like watermelon, if watermelon were made with rotted pears spiced with black pepper and were as dense as uranium.

Spock ate two large packets that were dark purple and full of seeds. He seemed to be relishing them.

Kirk worried about Gary, about all his shipmates. Had the Sanchez been captured? The rebels rarely took prisoners. They did, however, take equipment, which led to a desire to destroy whatever they might be intending to take. Since there was no evidence the ship had self-destructed, maybe there had been enough spies on board to capture the ship whole. The rebels seemed to have no trouble placing compatriots within Starfleet's ranks.

"May I assist with anything?" Spock said.

Kirk remembered the virus with a start. "Have you checked the feeds for news of . . . things?"

Spock fetched a padd and hooked it into a wall mount above the table. Everything on the ship was tied down. Clearly this Sten piloted often.

Spock scrolled through the feeds in Standard and Vulcan. He shook his head.

Kirk said, "News of the Sanchez wouldn't be public, at least not for a while."

Sten said something.

Spock translated, "He says we have received an transmission from Starfleet acknowledging receipt of your report."

"Nothing more?"

Spock called the message up on the padd. It was just the standard header with no message content.

"I may end up at ensign," Kirk said.

"I do not understand how you are at fault."

"I was in command. That makes everything my responsibility."

"That seems disproportionate to your ability to influence events."

Kirk looked Spock up and down. "Even your safety as a civilian was my responsibility."

Spock looked away as he spoke. "Was my presence part of your report?"

"No." Kirk stood then. He had extra energy for the first time in days. He went over to the co-pilot station and put his hand on the seat back. He said to Sten in broken Vulcan, "If I sit without moving, okay?"

Sten turned his blue eyes to him and stared. Kirk levelly returned the stare and resisted straightening his borrowed robe, which he was wearing loosely because it was heavy, especially given how warm the ship was kept.

Sten said in Standard, "It is my helm."

"That's why I'm asking permission."

"And if I deny your request?"

"I'll go take the nap I so badly need."

"Take the seat in that case. Touch nothing."

Kirk winked at Spock's stunned expression.

\--------- 888888 ---------

They descended through a colorful layer of atmosphere and sailed over low mountains to foothills, to a city on a plateau above a desolate shallow valley. There was quite a bit of traffic flying. The ship pitched and rolled to turn sharply out of the traffic flow and plummeted into the garden of an estate with many subgardens and high walls encompassing low, rounded structures.

"This is your parents' place?"

"Yes."

Spock appeared unhappy. When Sten wasn't looking, Kirk squeezed the back of Spock's arm in sympathy with his imminent retribution.

The ramp went down. A middle aged Vulcan in robes with elaborate symbology down the edges of it stood before the stone gate. Kirk was glad to be in a crisp uniform. He followed Spock out and waited through greetings. He forewent trying a greeting in Vulcan. It could seem rude to try too hard in some cultures. He waited to be addressed.

"Lt. Kirk." The Vulcan said. "I am Sarek. This is my home. You are welcome here. You will excuse me while I deal with my son."

They strode away off to the left just inside the gate, Spock with his head down. The name Sarek was familiar and Kirk searched his memory as he stood waiting.

Sten stowed the ship ramp, did a walk-around, then gestured impatiently for Kirk to move.

"The lady is likely eager to visit with you."

A woman stood inside the house proper wearing a gossamer white hood and light-weight robes.

"Lt. Kirk, please come in." She did sound pleased. Kirk felt the tension in his back ease.

She lowered her hood as she led the way. "I'm Lady Amanda."

Kirk stopped walking, then started up again. He remembered the name now, the Vulcan ambassador to the Federation, who had been recalled to Vulcan just the month before as diplomacy broke down with the Federation.

"This is Ambassador Sarek's house."

Lady Amanda spoke with the same kind sweetness. "Yes. You weren't informed?"

"Somehow that got left out."

She led the way to a tea table on the verge of a narrow garden letting in filtered light. Vines grew between the stones of the floor.

"Please, have some refreshments. I suspect the ship isn't stocked well for the average human guest."

"It was an adventure in eating," Kirk said.

"And based on how poorly your uniform fits, I suspect you are hungry from your ordeal."

She sat down and lifted the lid off a tray of small cakes. Kirk's mouth filled with liquid.

"You're a goddess," Kirk said.

He started in on his second cake, marveling at the taste of actual blueberry. She poured out tea for him. Kirk put his treat down to pick up the tea, determined to hide his injury.

She said, "I am curious what happened, if you are allowed to say."

Kirk swallowed part of his last huge bite and took a sip of tea. "World's finest interrogator."

She looked up in concern, but his sly smile must have removed her worry about offending because she smiled faintly too.

Kirk said, "I don't actually know what happened other than Starfleet got fooled, as we seem to too often. But you are probably referring to Spock. I should let him say."

She accepted this and bit into a small chocolate eclair which she ate with fine manners.

Kirk pulled his elbow off the table and sat up straighter. "I will say that I am impressed by Spock. He's a useful person to be stranded with."

She nodded at this. "How long since you were last on earth?"

Kirk was jarred by the change in topic. He put his half of a tart down and wiped himself free of crumbs. He neatly folded the napkin and set it beside his plate.

"Why is Spock allowed to believe there is nothing impressive about him?"

Her eyes studied his. "It isn't something I can explain to you in a way that you will accept with only human experience to frame it. Partly it is the Vulcan way, to ensure that children know that their place is as a single member of a group, not something above it. Vulcans can be astoundingly intelligent and can lose their sense of needing a place as a result."

Kirk adopted an administrative tone. "And partly it's what else?"

"It is a family matter that is not discussed. I would appreciate it not coming up again."

She sounded deadly serious about this with no sweet tone.

"I'm just a guest, and a grateful one at that." He sipped his tea. "Understand, I command beings which means I've learned to read between the lines of their behavior. I didn't like what I saw with Spock."

Her brows lowered in question, but she didn't speak.

Kirk lowered his voice, even though he couldn't hear anyone else about in the house. "Someone seemed to have beaten his self-image down pretty thoroughly."

She dropped her eyes and set her teacup down.

Kirk said, "But I'm out of line. And likely a little defensive because I grew to like Spock. It won't come up again."

"Spock could use a friend."

"I'll agree with you on that."

She said wistfully, "Although, friendship is not something Vulcans will admit to."

They talked about politics and earth for two hours, then Kirk was shown to a guest room where he could rest. He hadn't thought he was tired until he was left alone in a room with a bed.

He woke some time later and marveled at the absolute quiet around him. He hoped Gary was all right. He hoped Spock was all right. He seemed to be the only person he knew well who wasn't in immediate danger. That wasn't normal.


	8. Codes

Kirk freshened up, straightened his uniform, and left the starkly stone guest room. He had no idea what time it was. It seemed to be morning, based on the scent of coffee.

"Lt. Kirk," Lady Amanda said in warm greeting. She poured him a cup and pushed it over the counter. Ambassador Sarek sat at the larger table by the long wall with a padd before him, fingers steepled. He raised his head. Kirk had zero hint of his thoughts from his face.

"Thank you for your hospitality, sir," Kirk said.

"Of the few things my son was willing to say, one of them was that you helped him survive."

"I think Spock did more of that work than I did since he had a good scanner on him. But yes. I was just following my training."

"He said in particular that you insisted on dividing what little food you had equally."

Kirk hadn't expected to have this thrown back at him.

"Of course I did." Kirk scratched the back of his neck, trying to read between the lines or read even an ounce of a hint in the Vulcan's expression. There was nothing. In comparison, Spock gave a lot away, even though Kirk hadn't thought so before now.

"Speaking of which," Amanda said, "I assume you would like a cheese omelet."

Kirk's entire body reacted to this offer. "Thank you. Yes."

He stood where he was, holding his coffee until Amanda said, "Have a seat. At the table." She gave him a knowing look, fully understanding he wasn't certain he should sit with Sarek.

Kirk sat diagonally from his host and sipped his coffee.

"You are the only survivor from your ship?" Sarek said.

"Last known. Unless you know something I don't about my ship."

"I used to have access to some secure feeds, but I do not any longer."

Kirk sighed. "Relations can't be allowed get any worse between Vulcan and the Federation."

"I agree," Sarek said.

Kirk wondered how political of a conversation would be polite. He was talking to an ambassador, but then again, it was the breakfast table.

"I'm curious." Kirk said, "How are the Militants perceived on Vulcan?"

"We refer to them as outliers. Even though as a people we follow the teachings of Surak, adherence to this, like all natural processes, fall along a distribution. There will always be a few who deviate significantly from the norm. That is how they are perceived."

"They may not be the norm, but unless you make an effort to counterbalance, they are going to end up representing Vulcan to the rest of the galaxy."

Sarek steepled his fingers and stared at the tips of them. "Vulcans do not think about how we are perceived in this way. Once we state our position, there is no reason to state it again. Unless something has changed."

Kirk rubbed his jaw. He put his coffee down because it was making his stomach more acidic.

He couldn't remain silent. "You need to do more. Use these fast Vulcan ships to assist where you can."

"We do that. It does not make an impression that I can see."

Kirk thought back over the feeds he had seen. "That's because you slip away quietly. You need to tell your story."

This brought on a disturbed raised brow from his host.

Kirk continued, "You need to show us humans that you are mothers and fathers and families, just like we are. Show how we are not that different. Your instinct toward privacy puts you at a huge disadvantage."

Kirk longed to say more but he'd just be arguing over the same points and Vulcans didn't do that, so he didn't do that.

"You are suggesting we be different than what we are," Sarek said.

"Just until relations normalize again. The alternative risks losing a lot more of yourselves."

A plate was placed before him with what must be a four egg omelet on it, cheese oozing from the seams.

Amanda took the seat across from him, gave him a small smile as if they were in cahoots.

Sarek said, "You were formerly a lieutenant commander."

Kirk's thoughts had blanked out as he ate, but they snapped back to the present.

Sarek explained, "There is damage to your sleeve where the dashed stripe was removed."

"Sarek," Amanda said sharply.

"It's all right," Kirk said. He stretched the fabric of his sleeve and could see the disturbance in the weave. "I never noticed that. No matter. I'll be a buck private before I'm through."

"That is a different branch of your military; is it not?"

"It's an expression."

"I see."

Spock appeared in the wide arched doorway, utterly expressionless.

"Come in, Spock, I have breakfast for you," Amanda said.

Spock took the seat across from Sarek, did not meet anyone's eyes.

Sarek said, "You will complete T'Prith's project today. That will put you one ten thousandth of the way towards purchasing a replacement ship."

Kirk bit his fork to avoid pointing out that the ship wouldn't have been destroyed if it hadn't been for his interference.

"The project is completed. I did not feel I should enter into your presence until it was."

"Is it functioning correctly?"

"The verification confirms that it is. I have submitted it."

Kirk sipped his coffee to avoid smiling. This coffee was going to ruin him for fabricated.

Sarek said, "We should find you a more difficult project in that case."

Spock nodded.

Spock had apparently not told his father anything. The entire rebel colony force, ships and bots, could be falling to its collective knees and no one in Federation space would know. Kirk pondered that with some alarm at the uncertainty of it all, until he noticed Amanda watching him.

Breakfast was long ago cleared away by a servant. Kirk was watching the public feeds on a padd when Sarek approached.

"I am attempting to arrange your return to Starfleet, but there are no Federation ships at the moment free to make a rendezvous. There are private carriers that are making runs between here and earth through neutral outposts. Tomorrow, if official arrangements still cannot be made, we shall look into that option, if you are amenable."

"I am. Thank you."

"It is little effort compared to my usual duties."

"I imagine."

Kirk saw one feed that read 'Stranded Starfleet personnel picked up by private Vulcan ship' but there were no details behind it. It was just an automated notice likely culled from what was left of Starfleet's heavily censored feed that never included names or locations.

Kirk spent his afternoon walking Amanda around the garden with her on his arm. It felt surreal. The desert, the garden, her proper manners, the whole thing in contrast to robot death and starvation. The two of them talked about earth foods they both missed. They talked about earth weather. Kirk was telling her about his trip to the swamps in Georgia last leave when Sarek came outside.

"Lt. Kirk, there is an open subspace channel for you in my study. An Admiral Coyran."

"Admiral?" Kirk said. But Sarek would not be joking, or mistaken. Kirk gently released Amanda's arm and followed Sarek inside.

The door to the study thudded closed and Kirk keyed the channel to come alive. The man on the screen had a strong forehead, classic nose, a thin mouth and salt and pepper hair. He certainly looked like Admiral Coyran.

"Lt. James Kirk?"

"Yes, sir."

"How are you, son?"

"I'm doing well enough, sir. Thank you."

Coyran nodded, fell thoughtful.

"You somehow managed to land at the one place that could be considered a Federation embassy left on Vulcan. Good job with that."

"Just luck, sir."

"You have amazing luck."

"Not my usual luck, sir."

"I'll get to the point of my call. Your report is a little sketchy in places."

This is more my usual luck, Kirk thought. "I apologize sir. I wasn't quite myself."

"Understood. I need to ask you a few questions."

Kirk projected helpfulness rather than the clenched gut he actually felt. "Yes sir."

"We've sent a probe there, and they confirmed what you said about firefights and body count. We also do not know what became of the ship. Do you have anything to add that would help with that?"

Kirk shook his head. "I've thought about it over and over. And, no, I regret I don't. I was hoping you were going to tell me."

"We suspect they were taken prisoner, which would be a new turn to things."

Coyran looked off-camera at something. "I have your full personnel record in front of me, Kirk. And my question is this. Are you listening?"

Kirk had been thinking about Gary and his crewmates. "Yes, Admiral, I am.''

"Did you attempt the same solution to this battle that you applied to the Kobayashi Maru?"

All Kirk could think of was that Spock did not want anyone to know. And, for some reason the admiral was talking in code.

Speaking slowly, Kirk said, "I did like that solution, Admiral."

Coyran nodded. "Kirk, do you feel safe embedded where you are?"

"Yes sir, quite."

"I'm ordering you to lay low for a while. At least three or four days for a start. I'll get back to you if and when anything changes. Coyran out."

Kirk powered down the terminal and went out. He glanced into each room on that hallway that was open until he found Spock, in what must be his personal room.

Kirk shut the door, which was made of stone covered in padded fabric and was presumably soundproof enough for Vulcan ears.

Spock looked up in question. He was working at a terminal with a four small separate keyboards, two in Vulcan, two in Standard and he wore a sensor glove for gesturing.

Kirk pulled over a chair. "Is it okay to talk?"

Spock nodded.

"I need a copy of the virus. And I need you to explain the coding to me."

"I doubt this is possible."

"Because I'm a foolish human?"

"You are putting the insulting spin on my words."

"No, you are doubting me. Give me more credit than that. Show me the code."

Spock pulled out a terminal box that was missing side plates. He powered this up and went across the room to a decorative box from which he pulled out a small memory chip.

The code came up on the screen. It wasn't anything Kirk recognized. The screen was solid with alien symbols.

"You don't format this while you work?"

Spock hit a button and at least a few line breaks showed up.

Kirk put his hands on his cheeks. This wasn't going to be easy to fake knowledge of. He didn't even know what language this was.

"Did you make up this language?"

"Yes."

"Shit."

"May I ask why you are attempting to understand?"

"Because I essentially just took credit for your virus with Starfleet command."

Spock raised a brow and held it raised. "And that ruse was successful?"

"You keep underestimating me. I have a reputation for this sort of thing, I'll have you know. But this is another level."

Kirk pulled the terminal closer and settled comfortably into his chair. "This system is offline?"

"Its network capabilities have been physically removed."

Spock pulled out a cable and another device that had wires splitting to other control boards broken out of random devices. "This is the test rig. I reload base code on these devices and then monitor the virus's progression through them. I sometimes leave it for an hour, to see if it continues mutating and in what ways."

"Let me look through this for a while."

Spock put the other devices away and turned back to his terminal. "As you wish."

Kirk scrolled, familiarizing himself with the files. There were more than eighteen, and some were alternatives. The code was some kind of symbolized machine language. He compared the alternatives to the final files, trying to let the meaning in through the differences.

He found the interpreter and began reading that. That, at least, was in G, the language Kirk knew well enough to make changes in existing code, such as in Starfleet training simulations and his upperclass academy-mate's room control code to ensure that a certain overbearing, grey-haired, Irishman overslept for his most important oral exam.

Kirk got up and paced to stretch his legs. They were called to dinner.

Kirk took a seat and accepted a plate heaped with something sort of like lasagna. Amanda had tried to explain the substitutions during their stroll together. She hadn't mentioned that the result was blue.

Kirk said to Sarek, "Did Admiral Coyran send you a separate message, Ambassador?"

"He did. He requested that we shelter you for a few days."

"I hope that's all right? It's rather nice here."

"Of course it is," Amanda said.

Sarek said, "You seem to be in some kind of trouble."

"In as much as I always am. Yes. But, maybe more than average."

Sarek said, "Your admiral declined to provide details on said trouble."

"I expect it's classified at the moment."

Amanda said, "Did they find out what happened to your ship?"

"No. Maybe taken, crew and all. That would be a change for the colonists. Perhaps better than the alternative. Maybe not."

Sarek said, "I am not independently sanguine about your continued presence with insufficient information, but for now I will trust my wife's assessment of you, personally. She is a skilled judge of human nature, which I am not."

"Thank you," Kirk said.

Amanda gave him a nod.

No one questioned their retreating to Spock's room. Kirk left the door open to eliminate suspicion.

Before Kirk sat back down, he said, "Can you explain a few things to me before you get involved in something else?"

Spock gave him a dubious expression. Kirk was grateful Spock had lost his utterly expressionless mode this quickly so he tried not to be insulted.

Kirk dropped his voice. "If you want to offload blame, or credit. Or both. You need to help me."

Spock gestured that he should return to the terminal.

Kirk scrolled though the interpreter code. "I get the sense that all of the systems you expect to see are based on the same machine language, more or less. Or the same four. Is that really true that everything is so standardized?"

Kirk scrolled some more. "Is this some of the hard coding you mentioned?"

Spock turned from the screen to Kirk. "Yes."

"See. I'm not as dumb as I look. Okay. I need some help with these symbol tables. They aren't clicking for me because I can't see the pattern. At least I hope that's why. And I dearly hope there is a pattern."

Kirk was working on his first uselessly small program in Spock's genetic symbol language when Amanda came to the door.

"You two are rather quiet," she said. "I am going to retire for the night, if you need anything Lieutenant."

Kirk stood up. "Call me James, please. And thank you for everything today."

The next morning, Kirk wandered out at the scent of coffee. He'd had a good night's sleep because his brain had forced him to stop working on Spock's coding earlier than he would have liked. He had dreamed crowds of symbols which inflated like balloons.

Spock placed a padd before him with the public feeds scrolling on it.

A disabled a cargo hauler was drifting in one of the primary spacelanes. And the private repair ship that had attempted to assist was also apparently experiencing problems. The feed scrolled. Kirk paused it at the item stating that there had been no bot raids in the last two days within the core of the Federation.

Both could be unrelated. But Starfleet knew there was a virus involved. Otherwise the question about the Kobayashi Maru would not have come up. That meant it was running wild, somewhere.

Kirk sipped his coffee. He needed to get back to learning the virus code. He could get recalled at any time.

He studied the easiest of the eighteen programs, the garbage collection, the chunk that cleaned up after the rest of the code. It was starting to make a glimmer of sense when Amanda asked him to take her for a stroll.

With a smile, Kirk stood up and did so.

"I'm glad Spock is so comfortable with you."

"Is that unusual?" Kirk asked.

"He does not usually wish for any company. Of course he's never had the option of human company. I wouldn't have expected that to be more welcome."

"He's easy to get along with."

"When he is in front of his computer terminal or his scanner you wouldn't know he was even there."

Kirk smiled, even though he wanted to berate her again for breaking Spock down, but he'd promised to leave the topic alone.

After lunch he found the jury-rigged terminal had been put away. Spock handed him a padd. It had just the interpreter and some example programs on it, in increasing complexity, as well as the public feeds.

"That is less suspicious to be using."

"Right. Good idea."

Kirk took the padd out to keep Amanda company until afternoon tea. He felt like he was cramming for an examination.

"Would you like a book to distract you? I have quite a library."

"I'm hoping to see something in the feeds that lets me figure out what happened. If you know what Starfleet reports look like before censorship, it's possible to guess what the reports looked like that generated a particular feed item."

"You, of course, have friends you are worried about."

"Yes. My friend from the academy, Gary Mitchell. I haven't been on the Sanchez long enough to make other really close friends. But Gary's saved my life and we know each other really well. I hate to think what might be happening to him right now. To everyone. But especially him."

She nodded. Kirk wondered then if the question had been a test. He went back to the coding rather than think more about it.


	9. Transport

On day five Kirk's orders came through. The Potemkin would divert to rendezvous with Sarek's personal vessel in neutral space. Kirk would be taken on to earth and report to Starfleet headquarters.

Spock stood before his father, arms at his sides, but raised in a way that made it clear he could not properly relax. "I wish to go with him."

Kirk raised his head from his coffee in surprise, which was fortunate. When Sarek's accusatory gaze came his way, Kirk could honestly assert with his shrug that he didn't know.

Sarek said, "You will remain here, Spock. You are not prepared for such a life."

"How do you know?"

Amanda said, "Please. After breakfast perhaps?"

Sarek said to Spock, "Because I have seen far more than you have and I know you well."

"You do not know what saw on Wolfram Thesus Five."

"Because you refused to tell me."

"I did not wish to burden you with it."

"Really?"

Kirk shut his eyes at the patronizing tone.

Spock said, "Did you know you can fake life signs by pumping refrigerant and electricity into corpses?"

"No, but I can see how that might work."

Spock hadn't seen that, except on the playback of Kirk's wrist scanner. He'd been curious and Kirk had been bored. But Kirk had worried it had made too much of an impression.

Amanda shook her head and went to top up her coffee. "So much for breakfast."

"Did you know that to avoid being sliced alive by a bot, humans will execute each other with a phaser? Their comrades, not their enemies."

"Humans will do all sorts of things. That is precisely why you must remain here."

Spock looked away from all of them. Kirk could see him struggling, could see his newly emergent pride fighting against being forced down small again.

Sarek said, "Return to your room until your emotional control is fit."

"Sarek," Amanda said, "I wish to have a last morning all together. Is that really necessary?"

Spock turned back to them, face cleared of emotion.

Kirk dearly wished he could talk to Spock alone. He tilted his head at the table to encourage him to sit down with him. Spock did so.

Kirk sent him a sympathetic smile and received a stony visage in return. Kirk ate his breakfast and encouraged Spock to do the same. Eventually he began tearing his food apart and taking small bites of it.

Sten was let in and he and Sarek retreated to the study. Spock pushed away from the table and stood up.

Amanda said, "I think it highly unlikely Sarek will allow you to travel along. HIGHLY. Unlikely."

Kirk abandoned breakfast and gestured for Spock to follow him to his room. Kirk closed the door.

"It does not work here to be myself," Spock said. His arms were lax now.

"I noticed." Kirk stepped up to him. "Nevertheless, I don't regret telling you how amazing you are."

Spock ignored this and sat at the jury-rigged terminal and found a small memory chip in a stone box on the desk. He put this into the device, then handed it to Kirk. "It is safe as is. Do not run the five core pieces through the interpreter at the same time. Otherwise you can open it on any padd to look it over. It is just ordinary textual data as is."

Kirk knew which five those were, they were the five he couldn't understand at all. He understood two of the programs well, and a little of three others. He was going to have to fake the rest. If by some miracle he could have brought Spock along, he certainly would be put to use.

Kirk pocketed the chip and gathered up his things into the sack that had originally held shell charges. He stepped up to Spock, into his personal space. Despite Spock's firm hold on his emotions, Kirk felt the same steady contentment he'd felt on WT-5 whenever they were this close.

"I'm going to miss you," Kirk said.

He waited for a response that didn't materialize.

Kirk went on, "I'm going to assume we'll meet again because I don't want to imagine otherwise."

Spock tilted his head as if he could perhaps be stirred to be curious about this peculiar human trait of making goodbyes. His expression didn't otherwise shift even a millimeter.

Kirk swung the sack off his shoulder and put his injured hand on the side of Spock's face. Even this blatant touch and the pain it caused Kirk didn't elicit a reaction.

"I mean, really miss you," Kirk said.

He bent over and put his lips over Spock's, catching them twice in soft kisses.

This got a reaction. Spock's mask was gone. He appeared alarmed, perhaps fearful.

Kirk bent again and kissed him on the forehead. "Sorry. I have to go."

\------- 8888 --------

Kirk said goodbye to Sten in Vulcan, minus the salute, just before the transporter lock took hold. He was greeted in the Potemkin transporter room by a yeoman, a freckle-faced, red headed man with a long jaw.

"Lt. Kirk, I presume? I'm to see you to your quarters." He glanced at Kirk's sack, which contained his hand phaser and the Vulcan robe he'd been given. "Is that all of your things?"

"Yes. Everything in the world I own at the moment." He didn't care. He could still clearly recall not expecting to still have his life.

"All right then."

The yeoman walked briskly, which frustrated Kirk who wanted to look around. The ship's corridors were broad and curved only slightly, implying a ridiculously large disk for the primary hull. They took a lift and got out at a quieter corridor.

"Your quarters are here. The captain expects you at his table at eighteen hundred. Sharp."

Kirk watched him stride away, a little stunned by the professionalism he'd witnessed on their short trip.

Kirk cleaned up in the sonic. The dermaskin had been peeling off his wound at the edges and the sonics forced it completely off. Black specks were pressed into the pink of the wound but it seemed to be closing up. He was inclined to simply cover it with more dermaskin and forget about it, but it still hurt to try and pull his fingers back, and he saw now that the cord to his ring finger was completely severed, blackened stubs of tendon showed between the ridges of inflamed pink flesh.

His quarters lacked his usual companion and that made him want to wander where there were distractions. It was just after twelve hundred hours. He could legitimately wander a lot of the ship looking for sickbay. He found a bit of gauze in the well-supplied toiletry kit in the head and covered the wound. He knotted it across his palm with his teeth and headed out.

Kirk was on deck twelve, just walking every corridor he found, deck by deck. He could stop and ask any terminal for a map of the ship, but hadn't yet.

He had stopped to examine a piece of large equipment stored in a side corridor when he heard, "Lieutenant," in that particular tone of a superior officer.

Kirk turned. A nicely formed woman in a nicely fitted uniform strode up to him. Commander's braids.

"You must be First Officer Graham," Kirk said.

Her brows came together. "You aren't assigned to this ship."

"I'm from the Sanchez, Commander," Kirk said.

"The Sanchez is missing."

"Yes. It is." Kirk didn't say more. If she wasn't keeping up with why they had been diverted, he wasn't going to help her out.

She looked at him as though counting up reasons to dislike him. Kirk seemed to always immediately irk his superiors unless he was very careful, and today he didn't feel like being careful.

"You are?"

"James Tiberius Kirk, Lieutenant SG. Currently assigned to the USS Sanchez. You are transporting me to Starfleet Command. I'm somewhat surprised you don't know that."

"Minor errands Starfleet makes us do aren't my department. Running the ship is." Her dislike had solidified. Kirk silently chided himself, but he wasn't going to do her job for her.

She said, "On that note, something I can do for you? Give you directions?"

Kirk held up his gauzed hand. "I was on my way to sickbay."

She said, "The inner ring of this deck. You are on the wrong ring." She looked around as if for an underling. "I'll take you."

She strode off as fast as everyone else on the ship walked. Kirk followed.

In the sickbay, the nurse made him sit down in a chair rather than get on a table, which Kirk was grateful for. She cut off the gauze.

"What did that? Looks at least a week old."

Kirk studied the wound. It looked much worse under good lighting. "Bot. I lost track how long ago. About 300 hours, maybe."

The nurse looked at his eyes this time. "Needs surgery. I'll have the CMO look it over and decide what she wants to do."

Graham stepped back over from the terminal in the corner. "Lt. James Kirk is listed as MIA."

"I was for about 125 hours." Kirk remembered Admiral Coyran's words about laying low. Had they not registered him as found for some reason?

Kirk scratched his neck. "You should check with someone before raising a stink about that. There might be security reasons for my status being wrong."

"I would have been informed."

"Maybe you were busy. It really is only a minor errand. Just one Lieutenant, delivered to Starfleet Command."

"I'll check with the captain."

"I'm supposed to be at his table tonight. We can both see him." Kirk tried to sound upbeat, but he could hear how obnoxious it actually sounded. He dropped his chin to his chest. "God. I'm sorry Commander. I've been tip toeing around-" He almost said "Vulcans" but stopped himself. But it wouldn't be a secret that he was transferred from a Vulcan registered ship, would it?

The CMO came out, looked over the wound with more concern than it deserved.

"That hand needs reconstruction."

"Can we fit it in before dinner? I'm being offloaded at oh seven hundred tomorrow."

"After dinner. Then you can sleep off the medications. Report back here at twenty two hundred. Why did you wait so long?"

Kirk admired the wound, the cold precision of it. "There weren't any options, really." Finding human medical care would have meant leaving the estate, but the real reason had been that he couldn't have borne the fuss.

She lifted his hand. "Looks like bot damage. You want to use this hand fully again, you should be more considerate of it."

"I was worried about eating, finding water, hiding. My hand was pretty low on the list."

She sprayed on a thick coat of garishly blue dermaskin and dropped his hand. Kirk thought that was a clever way to make sure crew didn't just go untreated indefinitely.

The first officer escorted him back to his quarters. She didn't seem to dislike him now so much as want to be rid of him.

In the lift she said, "You are the only survivor. That's only a little suspicious. You must have been planetside. What happened to your fireteam?"

"Didn't you read the report just now in sickbay?"

"Most of it was redacted. And it was short to start with."

"I don't know why. I filed a full enough report as soon as I had a secure channel."

The lift opened. They pushed through the traffic getting on. Around the long bent passageway they went, slower this time because his escort was too lost in thought to walk fast, apparently. She stopped and waved open the door to his quarters.

The deck was quiet on the port side. Kirk stepped inside his quarters and turned and stood where the door would remain open. "My fireteam killed themselves, Commander. Except for one who was killed by a bot. Any other questions?"

She gestured at his hand. "How did you end up with a scratch, rather than sliced up like a butcher's case?"

"Luck."

Kirk's arms and shoulders were trembling. He inhaled slowly, focusing a lot of control on just breathing. The shaking eased. He stood mostly at attention, waiting.

"Remain in your quarters unless you have an escort. Someone will come and take you to dinner and to the dispensary."

Kirk acknowledged this with his most obedient tone. He needed to study the code more. The panic to learn it was likely the reason he was chest deep in bad memory now. He hadn't had much time to think. She turned and strode away and he stepped back to let the doors hiss closed.

The silence reminded him too much that the room was empty. But the code made him feel like Spock was there. By the time eighteen hundred rolled around on the digital clock, he had a pretty good understanding of another code chunk. He could read the symbols rapidly now, he just didn't know what the function was without quite a lot of mental gymnastics. Spock was very very good at consolidating the logic into a tight knot so it required very little memory. Kirk couldn't imagine pretending he could write this. But he was going to have to.

\------- 8888 --------

"Lt. Kirk, our guest of honor," Captain Garrovick raised his hand in greeting. They were eating in a conference room and the other officers were already present. It looked like a senior staff meeting in progress.

Kirk pulled out a chair by the door.

"No no, down here. By me."

On the captain's right hand, Graham rolled her eyes. Everyone shifted down a seat on the other side to make room. Kirk sat down and put his right hand in his lap, determined to leave it, and the tell-tale dermaskin, there.

Across from him, Graham said, "Ah, Lt. James Kirk of the missing USS Sanchez."

Garrovick turned to her. "Something I'm sure he appreciates being reminded of just before dinner, Sal."

"It's all right," Kirk said. He'd found his casual footing again.

Plates came. Kirk loved the sound of silverware on china. Like temple bells bringing inner peace.

Garrovick said, "You must have done something very impressive or very very foolish to be taken straight to Command, Kirk. Which is it?"

"A little of both."

"How are things in the field?"

"Bad."

Kirk was starting to believe that there were two tiers to Starfleet. The big ships that remained close to earth, protecting it and the larger colonies that were loyal, and the smaller ships that were resource starved and given all the dangerous assignments.

Of course it was easier to supply a ship close to earth.

Conversation had moved on around him. But Garrovick eventually said, "You are quite far away. Hope you aren't on the battlefield still."

"No. I was thinking how much better you have it on this class of vessel."

"Yes, much. No one wants to tangle with a ship of this size, so everyone just gets out of our way and we can't get much fighting done. A ship like the Sanchez, on the other hand . . ."

"On old earth, flotillas were more common," Graham said.

Kirk said, "But that was because the larger ships needed protection, not the other way around."

"Is that true?"

"A twentieth century aircraft carrier was a sitting duck. You couldn't let an enemy get within range. No technology was crude enough to miss a target that big."

They debated fleet tactics while Garrovick ate, genially amused by their arguments.

Kirk held up his glass for wine, of all heavenly things, that was going around. He set his half-full glass down and Graham took it and placed it next to her own plate. Kirk glared.

"CMO disallows it," she said. She didn't sound cruel, just administrative.

Garrovick looked between them and turned a questioning gaze on his first.

"He's scheduled for surgery at twenty-two hundred, sir." She nodded at his hidden hand. "You usually eat left handed?"

Garrovick turned to Kirk in question.

"It's nothing, sir. Just a burn I couldn't get taken care of."

"A burn." Graham sounded mockingly amused. "A bot tried to cut his hand off."

Their end of the table quieted. Kirk composed his words carefully, tried to aim entirely at Graham. "You're very lucky you don't have to face them on this ship."

"You think so?"

Kirk looked down the table at the round, calm faces looking up in question. There was a distinctive lack of horror lurking.

"Looks like it."

"Just so happens I'm taking command of the Hampton, which is only one class larger than the Sanchez. We're being assigned to the outer colonies whose loyalty is unclear or undecided, perhaps."

Now it was her turn to look just a little shaky.

"I wish you luck," Kirk said in all sincerity. "May I offer some advice?"

The whole table had quieted.

She looked down, sipped his wine. "Of course."

"You need to deal with uncertainty, not administration. You will be constantly catching up, so you have to pick what is going to slide, on a good day, or what must be right, right now. There is nothing vaguely resembling the organization I see on this ship. On the other hand, you will know everything that is going on without spending much effort keeping track of it. So you can ease off on information gathering. It just seems to happen on its own."

She nodded. "And death and mayhem," she said. "And no peace and quiet, ever."

"No, you will get that. And it will drive you mad."

At precisely nineteen hundred the room emptied out. Kirk remained seated because he didn't know who is escort was.

Garrovick put a hand on Kirk's left arm. He had to reach though the stray glassware, because Kirk's right arm wasn't on the table. "Stay for a bit. I want to talk to you."

When they were alone, Garrovick said, "Off the record, why are you being recalled to Starfleet Command?"

"I'm pretty sure I can't tell you, sir. I'm sorry."

"Do you know?"

"Yes."

"Are you in trouble?"

Kirk tilted his head, exhaled. "Remains to be seen. I don't know what's been happening."

"I only ask because I want to know if I can entice you to be take a position here on the Potemkin when I shuffle personnel. If I spent another hour with you as pleasing as the last hour, I'd honestly be willing to make you my first. You were butting heads with Graham and that only happens when it's someone just like her. But if you are about to be doing time in a brig, I won't bother putting in the request."

Kirk chuckled along with him. "A brig isn't in my future. I was thinking ensign, perhaps."

"That's what I like about you, Kirk. You aren't wrapped up in that BS. You are interested only in getting the job done."

"My long history of clashing with my superiors doesn't turn you off, sir?"

"You think I didn't do that?"

"I have to admit, sir, that while it's attractive, I'd feel I'd abandoned my post coming on board here. It's far too comfortable."

Garrovick grabbed Kirk's arm off his lap and shook it. "Don't let them chase you out of the service, Kirk. We need you." He let go. "Was that your injured arm?"

Kirk held up his hand with the oddly precise slot in his flesh clearly visible under the dermaskin.

"You got caught."

"I did. Was pretty sure it was the end."

"How'd you get out of it?"

"That's what I can't tell you, sir."

Garrovick sat back, put his arms up on the rests, reevaluated Kirk. "Really. Now I am intrigued."

Garrovick considered him, then pushed to his feet.

"But I have a million things to do. Most of them would be on that list that could slide. How about I show you the engine room?"

"Thank you, sir, I'd like that."

"Even though I'm pretty sure you mean it when you say you can't abandon your post, there is always after the war to think of. I'd still like to give you my sales pitch."

In the lift, Kirk realized he felt how Spock must have when Kirk praised him. He too had gone a long time without anyone saying he was doing a good job and wanting him around and it felt pretty damn good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the guest commenter who was lamenting that this story was slash because it might ruin the story. The entire symbolic structure of the story hinges on it being slash. As an example: Spock shows up out of the sky and Kirk (which means "church") refers to him as Monastery. His white robes gradually darken at the edges over the course of their time together on the planet.
> 
> This story is about corruption and idealism and purity and strength and the Judeo-Christian constructs of that incorporate sex at the core of them. Another example: the computer virus is a study of how corruption can be purifying.
> 
> I hadn't even considered that I couldn't make this work until your comment made me step back and think it over. But gauntlet laid down. :D I'm never one to shy away from a challenge. I don't have as much time to revise chapters before posting as I'd like, but I'm pretty sure I can make this work.


	10. Re-assignment

Kirk was offloaded via transporter to the main pads adjacent to Starfleet Headquarters. Curls of white mist embraced the upper tiers of the building. Kirk could smell the fog as he crossed the concourse to the main building. It didn't smell like the earth he remembered; it smelled cold and remote from civilization. 

At a terminal, he keyed in his id and waited for the screen to tell him where to go. The screen update ticked around. Two figures approached him from behind. Tall. Wearing red. They didn't smile. 

"We are to accompany you."

Kirk looked between them. "Okay."

Admiral Coyran came out of his office when Kirk was announced.

"There you are, Kirk." He looked at the security. "You can wait here."

"We are ordered to accompany Lt. Kirk at all times, Admiral."

"Fine then, come in."

The admiral waved at a chair and took a seat at his desk. His assistant was sent out of the room. 

Coyran said, "The technical people as asking for an original copy, apparently mutations happen fast. Do you happen to know if one exists?"

"I have one."

"Good. I'll take you down there in a few minutes. I wanted to talk to you first. Need anything?"

"I'm good, sir. Thank you. May I ask what's been happening?"

Coyran glanced at the security detail posted inside the door to his office. 

"The enemy seem to be having a bit of trouble. If we've detected it, we suspect it is widespread. Some private ships are getting caught up."

"I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be. They got into trouble because they are smuggling for the enemy. Think about it. That has made a larger impact than the direct trouble. It's become a modern day siege situation with supply lines cut. Don't apologize for that."

He tapped his fingers on his desk. "My question is, why have you been hiding?"

"Sir?"

"You only demonstrated this talent twice before, at the academy, that we know of, that is. And not since."

"I don't want to do only this. I want be in the action."

"I see. I hear you are also quite an opponent at chess, which isn't a surprise at all, considering what I'm told about your work."

He glanced with annoyance at the security again. "You know, we will shake them in the core, as they don't have the clearance to be in there. Let's just go down early."

Showtime, Kirk thought. 

They travelled underground on a small monorail shuttle. Went deeper into the earth in a series of lifts. They arrived at an airy atrium with lots of natural light, made their way past transparent walls. People were working in groups with their work facing the outer solid walls, so everyone had a sense of everyone else, but couldn't see what they were doing.

Coyran went through a series of security screens, picked up an escort to replace the security detail. Kirk followed, adopting the curved posture and manners of most of the workers he saw as they passed. Everyone seemed to be far away inside their own heads, staring at the ground before their feet, or staring too much at each other before looking away.

Kirk and his escorts arrived at a glass-walled conference room with a large screen and lots of desks in a messy arrangement.

"This him?" someone asked.

People gathered. They weren't in uniform and many of them stood casually with their hands in their pockets. 

Coyran introduced Kirk to a woman with lots of braids. "Gertrude" wasn't likely to be her real name. "He has an unaltered copy. With him, right?"

Kirk nodded and pulled out the chip.

"Let's load it up."

People piled into the conference room like kids promised cakes and cookies. The code chunks flew by on the screen, popping into their own windows. 

"I told you that was the symbol set," someone said. "Otherwise the swap commands and the increments don't look right."

"Give us a tour," Gertrude said.

"That's one of the core chunks." Kirk took up a controller off a desk and arranged the windows. "These are the five core. Classifier, this is the biggest piece, it determines how target code is rendered in the genetic symbol table, Retroguvenator, I call it, it modifies the target system once useful code is found, Infector, which actually does the copying. Some of that is also done in the garbage collection to avoid redundancy." He went on. Partly from his own understanding, partly just quoting. He managed most questions easily because they'd come up for him and he'd remembered the answer. Others he didn't understand he glided over, seeming distracted by looking for something on the screen.

He finished the tour and stepped back with an attitude that, well, anyone could take it from here, it was just code. And indeed the room started arguing and debating the merits, the implications. The code was copied and people pulled up private stations.

"This room is offline?" Kirk asked Gertrude.

"The department is. And the room is separate from that."

Kirk said, "It gets loose easily."

"We've noticed. Take a seat, if you will."

"He doesn't have clearance to be here," Coyran said.

"You couldn't get him a day pass?"

"Explicitly no."

Kirk tried to look disappointed. He glanced up at the code scrolling by. It happened to be the section he'd just figured out. He'd selected it probably for the same reason she had.

Gertrude said, "What's that do? It looks different form the rest."

"It's hard coding. A lookup table for hardware level functions it expects to find. I couldn't figure out how to represent some of the hardware generically enough to get it working in time. That's why this piece is sort of sloppy. There's some repeated code. It's the system's main weakness. So if you are looking to improve it. You need to figure out how to bootstrap it, essentially. It has to start somewhere with a target system, and it starts at this hardware level. There are only 4 main chipset families in use across earth influenced space. It's sort of alarming really."

She nodded. The question had been a test. It was true that this group didn't really look like his people. 

"Security is going to have my tailfeathers." Coyran took Kirk by the arm. "Sure you don't want to move down here? It's quiet. We pump in real sunlight."

They were in the lift going down to the shuttles.

"I noticed that. I like the architecture. It's utterly the opposite of what I'd expected."

"Glad you like it. I requisitioned it. This architecture triples the output. People need to feel part of something involving other people. Especially people who tend to forget other people exist at all."

After quite a bit of silent travel with their two redshirts, they were back in Coyran's office. 

"My assistant will give you a quarters assignment. There's a meeting tomorrow to figure out what to do with you. You aren't invited to it, of course. It does help that the damage has mostly been limited to the enemy and those supplying the enemy."

He waited for Kirk to look his way. "What do you want, Lieutenant?"

"To get back out there."

The admiral nodded as if expecting that answer. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, sir." Kirk smiled for the first time that day.

\-------- 8888 --------

The next day Kirk had lunch with his security detail. He'd decided to wander around, assuming they would follow and tell him if he went where he wasn't supposed to be. He couldn't get them to relax at all. Or say more than yes or no. He could have been an ax murderer based on their attitude toward him.

He had all day to kill and no code to learn to fill it. The feeds were on a large screen in the lobby. He found a low, soft chair there and watched them go by. Colonies pledged loyalty one day, turned out to be hosting a bot base the next. They used Federation overreach to justify everything. The Federation which had bent a lot at the start of things, refused to bend at all now. Ships were rescued, bases attacked, the loyal colonies pledged more support, sent their sons and daughters to fight, but were often viewed with suspicion. 

Passing Starfleet officers glanced at Kirk there with his detail, pondered the tableau, and moved on. Kirk found this, the feeds, and the infinite availability of decent food to be all the entertainment he needed. He could sit here for a week.

"Jimmy."

Kirk turned with trepidation and found himself facing the person he least wanted to see ever again. 

"Finnegan."

Kirk's security detail closed in, startling Finnegan.

"What's this, Jimmy? Yer own personal goons?"

Kirk smiled. "It appears so."

Finnegan slipped to the side and took the chair opposite Kirk. "A man can sit, can't he?" he demanded of the detail. 

They returned to flanking Kirk's chair. Kirk hadn't imagined he would like them as much as he did right then.

"How's she cutting?" Finnegan asked.

"Well enough. You?" Kirk kept smiling. He'd pulled off the ruse of his lifetime and now had a few goons to torment his biggest tormenter. Life didn't deliver this sort of thing that often. One had to pay attention. Savor it.

Finnegan leaned forward confidentially. The detail took a step forward, in sync, but remained out of the way. Finnegan shook himself. 

"Don't let them trap you here, Jimmy. I thought this would be where the action really is, where things are done. Buck no."

"What is your posting?" Kirk asked.

"With some ball bleedin brass. I'm no better than a dog with a forgetful master. And you're posted where?"

"With a missing ship."

"Aye. Really? How'd ya lose an entire ship, Jimmy. No wonder they're keepin' an eye on ya." He sat back. 

They talked for a while. Kirk wondered what duty Finnegan was skipping out on, maybe that was as misbehaved as he managed to be now. Kirk thought he deserved every minute of misery his new master could dish out.

Finnegan continued to ramble. "Hell, I'd love to knock one down with ya, but I have to get back to me desk."

Kirk said, "I'd love a drink right now, but I'm awaiting news of my fate, which should be imminent."

Finnegan stood up. Glanced at the two redshirts, who were the same excessive height as him. "Doesn't look good," he said. "Always knew you'd add up to no good, Jimmy. But give 'em hell for me, anyway."

He was gone. 

The feeds scrolled on.

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk was paged and marched back up to Coyran's office. Rear Admiral Pritchard was also there and Kirk was introduced as if they all might go out for a round of golf and cocktails when the meeting was over.

Pritchard ordered the detail to remain in the outer office and when they refused he told the assistant to go over whoever's head had assigned them. She made a few calls and they stood down.

"You don't look like a code jockey, Kirk," Pritchard said after the door closed. 

"I don't know what one looks like," Kirk said, to be cute and to deflect the question.

Pritchard sat on the edge of the desk. "Admiral Coyran tells me you are eager to get back into the fray."

"I am, sir."

"Captain of the Potemkin wants you at first officer, told me personally that he was very impressed in the short time you were aboard."

"I informed him I was turning down his offer, Admiral."

"He mentioned."

Pritchard crossed his arms. "Kirk, you've saved Starfleet untold lives and equipment and time. At the cost of a lot of uncertainty and chaos. We much prefer everyone work through proper channels, but realize that's not always possible."

He cleared his throat. "Even if your contribution was unorthodox and carried a great deal of risk, to everyone. Federation included. We don't want to be the ungrateful sort. So we will do a few things for you in return: First, we need to get you out of harm's way before someone else connects the dots, which isn't hard to do once one knows the dots are there. The infection spread is ridiculously easy to model, even with the sparse data we have. And you just happen to be the only one to walk away from Wolfram Thesus 5, which is the nearest habitable planet in the area of patient zero."

Pritchard went on, "We're still getting a handle on how best to clean up the rebels while they are hobbling. You are invaluable since you know best what to expect. So, I have an offer for you. The return of your bars, back to Lieutenant Commander, and command of the Ranger."

"The Ranger is in retrofit." Kirk said, trying not to believe.

"It's just finishing up and her commander, who didn't want to sit still for the three months while the ship was being worked on, took a position on the Lafayette and was severely injured in a firefight. Her first is barely qualified for his position already, so he cannot be moved up."

Pritchard went on, "Taking over without warning for an existing commander is about as difficult as a first command is going to get. You can sleep on it and let us know-"

Kirk said, "If you are offering me command of the Ranger, sir, I will take it."

Pritchard smiled faintly. "Glad to hear it. Your record is spotty, but it reads to me like someone who doesn't quit and I trust Captain Garrovick's assessment of you. I haven't heard him so passionate about an officer in half a decade. So, I'm giving you this chance mostly on his head, so try not to let him down."

Kirk felt his hands quivering. "No, sir. I won't sir."

"Any questions?"

"What berth is the Ranger in?"

"Don't hurry off just yet. For one thing, you need to replace that uniform to have a chance of impressing your new crew. Stores is in the lower levels of this building." 

Pritchard held out his age-spotted hand to Admiral Coyran, who looked at it before going to his desk and rummaging around. He handed over a jewelry box.

"And you'll need some pips so everyone knows you're in charge."

Kirk turns his head aside while the Admiral pinned a row of four pips to Kirk's collar. Kirk wished his own hands were that stable.

The admiral talked as he worked. "Sometimes those who have the hardest time with authority do the best when handed it. Sometimes it fails spectacularly. We never really know until we give someone the chance to prove things one way or the other."

Pritchard dropped his arms and held out his hand. Kirk shook it. The admiral didn't let go.

"Ready for this? Feeling confident?"

Kirk's arms felt numb. "I expect I will, more so, once I settle in on the ship and have something constructive to do."

"Honest on top of it."

Pritchard still hadn't let go. "Don't talk to anyone, press, civilian, otherwise. Anyone tries to talk to you who isn't your crew, your response is 'I'm late. Good day.' Understood?"

Kirk nodded, confused as to why this was a concern.

Pritchard finally released Kirk's hand. "The Ranger is docked at Station 6. High orbit. Try to get her out in eighteen hours if you can."

"Eighteen?" Kirk contained his shock. "Yes sir."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk found the store and the clerk validated his new rank before fabricating two uniforms. Kirk changed his shirt right there at the desk while the clerk rolled his eyes. "That sort," he said. "First command?"

Kirk gave him a questioning look.

"I can tell because you didn't move the pips first. Always move the pips first. Otherwise you won't get them back from laundry."

"Good advice."

"If you want more good advice, you should buy a dress uniform as well."

"Why would I need one?"

"I can see the medals you've earned on your file here. What did you wear to those ceremonies?"

Kirk shrugged.

The clerk's face twisted into dubious disdain, but he still sounded incredibly bored. "You are required to have one."

Kirk thought of the only photo of his father his mother kept on her dresser. It showed his father lying in apparent peace in an otherwise empty torpedo shell, his shipmates standing around him, some getting things ready. It wasn't an official photo; it was slightly out of focus and everyone in the picture had been captured unaware. But everyone was wearing a dress uniform.

Kirk smiled slyly. "If I don't have a dress uniform, they can't very well load me into the casket, can they?"

The clerk leaned over the counter and rested his weight on his arms. "That is the best excuse I've ever heard. Fine then. You can toss the old shirt into the cycler." He nodded at a chute in the wall.

Kirk carried his old uniform over there. He hadn't thought it looked that bad, but compared to the new one, it was downright ruffled. He put his face into it. It still smelled vaguely of the dust from Wolfram Thesus 5, which brought back horribly mixed emotions. He wasn't going to see Spock for a long time, but he would likely see bots soon enough. He bundled the shirt into a ball and tossed it. 

Back at his temporary quarters, he packed the extra uniforms into his shell sack and hitched it over his shoulder. He took up the small padd provided with the room and quickly scanned his new papers, which had already been posted. He contemplated stealing the padd, but after a quick scan of the senior officer bios from the Ranger, dropped the padd on the bed and left, striding rapidly.


	11. Stolen Command

While he waited in queue at the transporter station, Kirk considered how he'd gotten to such a place in just a matter of hours. With Starfleet stretched as badly as it was, promotions did tend to be based on desperate necessity and luck. There were certainly a lot of personnel at the bottom who wouldn't be in uniform without the same necessity. It would be a sign of normalcy when the service could be choosy again.

Even so, his instincts told him there was more to it than that. Was he being protected or gotten out of the way? Was he being given a golden opportunity or being set up to fail? The last possibility failed to bother him. He half hoped it was true.

A feed scrolled on the wall of the transporter area. There seemed to be more than the usual number of ships limping on the main spaceways around Orion, creating a hazard to navigation. Outside the station, a group of press had stopped to greet each other on the plaza. Kirk shook his head. He had too much to worry about already. He had a ship to run and he was going to do that and forget the rest of it.

Station 6 was larger than Kirk imagined. It had been expanded to three times its previous size and every berth contained a vessel. Kirk looked over the directory and decided to walk rather than take the station shuttle to the second to last berth beside the bulk of the space station proper.

Ship after ship hung in eerily uniform illumination in various states of retrofitting and rebuilding. The Colony War was originally supposed to be short, the colonists too technology poor to handle a drawn out conflict. But it had been four years and three months now since the colonists on Petranum Eleven had dropped bots on the Federation outpost in their system claiming they had exhausted other avenues to shake Federation interference in their affairs. Turned out to be a signal for a lot of colonies to decide if they were in or out. They'd been sharing robot designs for over a century, for everything from farming to mining to manufacturing, including, ironically enough, robots. The Federation had helped them set that up.

Once the atrocities started, war was a natural given, likely the express purpose of that first attack. The overconfident Federation had complied with the rebels' wishes, could do nothing else.

Kirk stopped when the Ranger came into view. One-hundred thirteen meters, Dionysus class, a rapidly produced, smaller version of the old Hercules class. She appeared to float, patchy white from repairs against the deep of space. She had only one gantry, on the port side to support some welding near an access panel. Everything about the ship was awkwardly abbreviated and inverted from the Eclipse class Sanchez with its oversized warp nacelles which sat well below the hull like an animal eager to spring. The Ranger's disk ran directly into the cylindrical hull with a bulky collar at the join. The bridge sat on top of the domed disk, looking hard to shield. The nacelles were foreshortened and almost straight out to the sides, limiting the warp field potential.

Kirk felt like a new parent who has just been handed an ugly newborn. She'd look beautiful eventually because she was his.

On the starboard side a gangway stretched across to the upper hull. A group of red shirts lounged standing up, partly blocking the entrance. Kirk walked further along and surveyed the side of the ship through the windows on the pier between vessels. He stopped before the end where a woman in a short red uniform stood with arms wrapped around herself, looking bleak. She wore her blonde hair in an elaborate weave. He considered saying something, until she turned her head aside to dab at her eye. He wouldn't want to be approached in that state, so he walked slowly back to the gangway portal.

There was something about security crew with nothing to do. They had a tendency to intentionally stand in the way. They paid Kirk no heed as he passed between them. At the open hatch, Kirk slowed to step inside with intention. The deck felt nice and solid underfoot.

Footsteps came running around the bend in the corridor and an unusually slim man in red about Kirk's height came to a flailing stop.

"Sir," he said crisply.

"You must be Riley," Kirk said.

Riley's face transformed into joyous. "Yes, sir. The notice of your assignment only came through half an hour ago. So things are a little chaotic here. Let me show you to your quarters."

As they walked, Kirk said, "We're supposed to push back at oh eight hundred."

"Yes, sir."

"Are we ready?"

"We can be."

Riley opened the door to Kirk's quarters. "We can key it to your biometrics right now if you like."

The quarters were long and narrow, smooth walled with everything closed up in drawers and cupboards on either side leading to a small head at the end with a curved door that swiveled into a pocket in the wall.

Riley began pulling things out and shoving them back again, like the bunk, lockers, desk. "You'll get used to it. You have a yeoman, but she's not on duty right now."

Kirk turned abruptly. "I have a female yeoman?"

"We had a female commander until half an hour ago, sir."

"Yes, of course."

Kirk put his sack down in the locker.

"That all you have?"

"Everything in the world at the moment." That bundle. And this ship.

Riley pulled out the desk, tested that the desk monitor functioned, and set a padd out on the desk. Kirk scooped it up and handed it back to him.

"I want to see the manifests and the repair logs of the retrofit."

Riley keyed those in and handed it back. He stood with his hands behind his back, bounced on his toes once. His gaze grew more eager to please as the minutes past.

Kirk said, "I'd like you to go with me on a tour of the ship, but let me finish looking this over first."

"Yes, sir. I'm sure the crew is eager to meet you. Command sent over a summary dossier to be distributed to the crew so we could get to know you."

Kirk was reading engineering change orders, trying to get a sense of where the chronic problems might be. He raised his head.

Riley said, "You didn't know?"

"No."

Riley bounced once up onto his toes. "It was quite impressive, sir."

Kirk thought, I woke up this morning as a lieutenant worried about a downgrade. The Rear Admiral of all of Starfleet apparently went out of his way to help him out with his new command.

"I'm a little worried what's in it," Kirk said, to explain his reaction.

"You survived the battle of Wolfram."

"It was barely a skirmish. Just me and two launchers and lots of bots. An actual battle would have been better."

"It's been the turning point in the war, sir. That's why everyone is marking it."

Kirk thought, not for the reasons everyone thinks.

That's why Command wanted him out of the way. They were writing a narrative and didn't want it damaged before it took hold.

Riley said, "Are they giving you another medal, sir?"

Kirk realized he'd lowered the padd when his thoughts dived off elsewhere. He quickly paged through the last week's officer logs.

Riley went on, "It said on the dossier that you had both an Antaras Cluster and a Karagite Order of Heroism." He turned and pointed at the wall by the door. "There is actually a case mount here, if you want to display them." He sounded like an excited puppy.

"I don't have them. Remember the sack?"

"You sound like you don't actually care."

Kirk lowered the padd. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, Mr. Riley. But in regards to medals. The times things get bad enough that someone has to step up and be a hero, they usually prefer it didn't have to happen that way in the first place. Better would be that no one need be a hero, because it would mean things are going swimmingly."

"I see." He sounded disappointed.

Kirk scrolled through the logs again. "You've done two shakedown cruises? And more retrofitting, down to the last spring and screw." He looked up at Riley. "You've been stalling."

Riley dropped his eyes and nodded. "When Commander Overlander was first injured it wasn't supposed to be this serious. But she reacted to the transplants. Some people do, apparently. She's expected to recover, but it's going to be months. They tried modifying her genes so the transplants would take, but that didn't work either. We hoped that we could finish getting the ship ready and, by that time, she'd be ready."

"So, this ship is in really good shape for one just out of retrofit."

"Yes, sir. We've put her through her paces and worked the kinks out. She's not a bad ship. She won't sustain a high warp speed for long, but she's quick and maneuverable under impulse. I think you'll like her well enough, sir."

Kirk smiled kindly so what he said wouldn't be mistaken for sarcasm. "I expect so. And we'll see if by the time this mission is through, we can get you a medal without the bad memories to go with it." He patted Riley on the back. "Let's visit the ship."

The bridge was probably the largest open area on the vessel short of the cargo bay, which was packed full. People were at their stations and a simulation was in progress. They stood as Kirk entered and Riley overzealously announced, "Captain on the bridge."

Kirk realized only at that moment how hard this was going to be. He had thirty seconds to make an impression and he used ten of them meeting each person's eyes. Grudging curiosity seemed to be the rule of the day.

A warning went off at the helm as part of the simulation. The woman there reached down and silenced it. She had native American features accentuated by braids that wrapped around her head like a crown. He had memorized the names of three shifts of bridge personnel, but there was no reason to assume this was any particular shift.

"Fairfeather, correct?" Kirk said.

"Yes, sir."

Kirk stepped over to the scanner's station on the starboard side of the forward viewscreen. The tall blond man with flat grey eyes nodded officially. Kirk guessed this was Toyvan. The scanner station looked entirely new, whereas helm and navigation were clearly the old panels.

Kirk was running out of time. He spun and turned to the bridge at large.

"I realize I'm stepping into someone else's shoes. And I don't expect anyone to be pleased by this change in arrangements, but it is what it is. I also realize that I need to earn every ounce of respect that you are accustomed to giving Commander Overlander."

He looked around with a wry smile. "Starfleet needs this ship out where it can make a difference. There are rebel ships and bases yet to be located and disabled. Somewhere there is a planet or likely a moon where the rebels are still manufacturing bots. If we don't want to meet anymore of them, it would be handy to find that. On another front, Militants made a hit on another Federation installation in the last 24 hours."

"No better than the Romulans," someone muttered.

"At least the Romulans have honor."

Kirk said, "I have noticed that the Militants don't ever operate anywhere near Romulan Space. As if they'd prefer not to match up with them. Or something."

There were a few smiles.

Kirk said, "In short, we have a job to do, and we need to get out there and do it."

Kirk and Riley continued the tour. The ship consisted of fifty eight officers and crew, crammed into extremely tight quarters. Kirk learned every name, noted every face he thought was too young or struck him as underprepared or of the wrong temperament. Too many ended up noted. He could count on two hands the crewmembers he thought he could rely on in all circumstances.

Security was the end of the tour, a low ceilinged area with steeply sloping walls just above the cargo bay. The loungers from the gangway platform were lounging here. They made a show of coming to attention and made a show of it being a show. Riley didn't seem to notice this. He introduced Lt. Yarrow, the head of security, a man with tiger stripes shaved into the stubble on his head.

"Commander. Sir."

Kirk said, "Before we push off for possibly months, are you outfitted properly? Spare reflective plate, rifles, launchers, should it come to that?"

This at least sparked Yarrow's interest. "The ship has three armories, spread out in case of damage to the ship. One small one near the bridge, one here near hq and the brig, and one on the torpedo deck. Would you like to see them?"

"Yes, I would."

\-------- 8888 --------

Back at the door to Kirk's quarters, which Kirk navigated to on his own, Riley said, "With your permission, sir. May I return to my other duties?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you for the tour." Kirk opened the door to his quarters, saw the desk pulled out exactly as they'd left it. "By the way, I don't think I saw my yeoman."

Kirk could tell by the way Riley's shoulders stiffened that he didn't like this topic coming up.

"She's not on board right now, sir."

"Where is she?"

Riley took a slow inward breath. "Rand is often visiting Commander Overlander, sir, in the base hospital."

Kirk said, "Does she have blonde hair in a weave?"

"You saw her, sir?"

"I think so. When she gets back have her report to me immediately."

Riley dropped his gaze. "Of course, sir."

Kirk reviewed his orders. He reviewed the logs of the last two days. He felt like he needed to do more to catch up with the status of his ship, which despite the tour, felt like a stranger. He really should go to the bridge, although a bumbling captain wasn't a boon to getting things done.

He opted to read logs and feeds. He put his feet up and did so.

His door chimed. It was the woman he saw on the station.

"Yeoman Rand, I presume."

She did not appear to have been crying. She just appeared unmovable.

"You wanted to see me, sir."

Kirk was certain she was looking for a reprimand. Why he was certain, he didn't know. Maybe it was the lack of explanation for her absence. She didn't look interested in a personal introduction so he didn't offer any.

"Come with me to the bridge, Yeoman."

On the bridge, the crew were at their stations, running systems checks before push back. He was handed reports to look over. There was no way he could read them all. He scanned them, asked Rand about one of them just to engage with her. She responded competently and fell silent.

There was a message in the pile, redlined from Admiral Pritchard's office, strongly suggesting he remain on board until departure.

Kirk put a hand on his first officer's shoulder. "We on schedule, Riley?"

"Yes, ahead of it. We could have pushed back two days ago." With a jerk of his head, he glanced at Rand and away again as if accidentally speaking a dark family secret.

Kirk handed the padd back to Communications even though Rand put her hand out for it. "Yeoman, you presumably know how to get in and out of the base hospital without attracting too much attention."

Her face went from hurt soft to firmly defiant. "Yes, sir."

"Good, I want you to take me to see Commander Overlander."

"Why?"

"Why, sir," Kirk corrected her. "Because I feel I should apologize properly for stealing her ship. I'd certainly be annoyed and frustrated in her place. Shall we?"

Comm said, "There is a lot of press hanging out by the gangway, sir."

"There is? What for?"

"Don't know sir. There often are a few for a ship launch, but they are never this early."

Kirk leaned over her board. "There is a gangway from the second hull. Is that clear of civilians?"

She flipped through the cameras monitoring the work on the vessel. "It's clear."

"That's two levels down, base side, in the cargo loading area." He turned to Rand. "Can you find your way from there?"

She nodded.

"Riley, give me your communicator." He handed Riley his.

"Sir?"

"You are going to cover for me on the remote chance Admiral Pritchard calls."

"You mean. Rear. Admiral. Pritchard?"

"The very same." Kirk started for the lift.

"What do I tell him?"

"That I'm in an engineering access tube, or in a radiation suit inspecting the power core. Make something up."

He had exceeded Riley's self confidence. Badly.

"You'll do fine," Kirk told him. "Anything comes up . . ." He waved Riley's communicator.

The bridge crew were smiling when the lift doors closed.

Rand led the way with a long-legged stride that made Kirk have to jog a few times. They were outside Overlander's room in less than twenty minutes.

"Let me go in, sir?"

"Of course."

After a time, she waved him in.

Overlander was hooked up to more equipment than Kirk expected. He had not heard the details of what had happened before the treatments had failed. She was reclined in a bed, her left arm and part of her torso were entirely inside a machine. Just her swollen fingertips were visible on that side.

"You must be Kirk," she said. She had to breath in deeply and talk with clear effort.

"Yes. I'm the bastard taking your ship."

She snorted. "If I wanted it, I had to not reject a standard tissue rejuvenation. Come a bit closer. On top of it all the Retinex Five wore off.

Kirk stepped up to the bed and took her good hand off the covers and held it casually. She looked over his face.

"You born on earth?"

He replied with some confidence. "Yes. Iowa."

"I never trust earthers."

Kirk laughed.

She breathed in. Spoke. "Admiral Pritchard assigned you, I hear."

"I sense another trap," Kirk said.

She smiled faintly. Her eyes fluttered. "I will eventually walk out of here, but I need to lower my expectations for what's waiting beyond those glass doors downstairs."

"There's always something you don't expect waiting."

"I'll agree with that. It's never what you expect."

She fell silent, appeared to be gathering strength. "You'll take care of my ship?"

"Yes, I will."

Her eyes closed. He wasn't sure if it was fatigue or emotion.

Kirk leaned closer. "When I bring her back, I'll give you a free shot. An un-opposed sucker punch."

She smiled without opening her eyes, gripped his hand. "I'm going to hold you to that."

He squeezed her hand back and set it back on the bed.

She said, "I want to talk to Janice alone."

Kirk departed, wandered down the corridor, which was strangely quiet. There were windows beyond the nurse's station overlooking the docking bays. He walked that way. The nurses paid no attention to him. Kirk heard the same voice he'd just left, breathing in. Making an effort.

"You need to stay. Take care of him. He's just as young and inexperienced as the rest of them."

Kirk looked around. Saw that the monitors in the rooms were on a panel behind the long desk where the nurses were huddled together, talking.

Maybe he wasn't fooling anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Short terminology note. The captain, as a role, is the person who is in charge of the ship, at any given time, while on the bridge. So, for this setting, the ship has a commander, the bridge has a captain (and helm, and nav, etc.) In TOS the rank and role of captain were always conflated probably to avoid confusion. But there aren't enough personnel of captain rank to command all ships, especially in a war. A small ship would be normally commanded by a Lieutenant. A large one by a Captain. We're in the smallish, mid-size here with the Ranger, in a ship class I invented for the story.
> 
> Role overrides rank, just in case that comes up at some point. If you were a lowly lieutenant in command of a ship carrying an admiral and said admiral did something out of line, said lieutenant could kick his/her butt. Handing out responsibility without authority would cause a lot of problems.
> 
> I'm going to use role on the bridge almost exclusively to avoid having to introduce too many minor characters.


	12. Push Back

Figures in starfleet colors, figures in pressure suits, civilian figures, even apparently a family or two, stood along the transparent panels surrounding the Ranger's berth to watch them shove off. Launches happened often on a docking station this big, so it was not the spectacle that attracted them, but something like superstition. 

Kirk felt the weight of their hope as their docking slot shrunk on the viewscreen. He stood beside the command chair, hand on the communications controls.

"Come about, Helm, and triple check we have a clear lane before putting on the impulse. I want a higher orbit as fast as possible. Get out of this traffic."

"Yes, sir."

Beside him, Riley looked like a kid who just opened a new toy he'd been wanting all year.

Kirk grinned too. 

"I have a clear lane, sir."

"Half impulse then, before it closes up."

The ship surged. Kirk held tightly to the chair arm.

"That was only half," Riley said happily.

"We need to get the gravity compensation adjusted," Kirk said.

"The crew like it."

"I'm sure they do. But I don't want ship performance impacting crew performance."

After that, Kirk noted things he wanted changed in his head, but kept them to himself. The crew's mood wasn't something to spoil. Riley didn't remain on the bridge long, he went below to deal with crew issues, insisting Kirk remain.

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk caught only a few hours sleep over the next three days, but he barely noticed. Every time he stood and felt the engines thrum up through the deck he remembered that he was at the helm and a wave of energy swept up into him. If he didn't burn it off, it would make him dizzy. Through the long hours of organizing and correcting and observing, the thrumming engines powered him as well as the ship.

He remained with each of the shifts, until he had trouble remembered what shift they were on. Shift changes continued to be fraught and several consoles were manned sloppily. Kirk didn't mind a casual attitude if the performance was there, but in most cases where it wasn't crisp, it was not up to par. 

He was in his quarters for a rare break when his CMO came to the door. 

"Doctor Chapel, come in."

Kirk pulled a seat out of the wall left of the desk that he had only found an hour before. She declined to sit.

"You haven't reported for your physical."

"No, I suppose I haven't had time."

"I waited until you were away from the crew to come point it out. I get the sense that commanders don't want to appear human."

"I appreciate that. No, we don't." 

She seemed vaguely bored, or maybe that was an act to project a certain detachment.

She said, "Any good reason you are avoiding me?"

Kirk tried on a smile. "No. I got examined on the Potemkin just days ago, as you probably saw in my record."

"There's no record of that on your file."

Kirk wondered if he had still been MIA at the time, so it hadn't registered. 

"Not sure why, but I'm all yours now if you like."

"I would like."

Had he not been in command, he might have turned that into an insinuation. Being a ship commander did have its downsides, such as never letting your guard down with anyone.

In sickbay, she said, "You are the absolutely last of the new assignments. So I thought I'd hunt you down."

Kirk rocked back on the examination table and immediately closed his eyes. 

"How much sleep do you usually get?" she said, taking notes off the panel.

"I usually find more time to sleep. I thought better to be tired now when we're in friendly space. Lots of issues to address with the crew."

"I thought this was a pretty good crew."

Kirk wondered for the hundredth time if they were better or worse off than the Sanchez. He still couldn't decide. There had a third of the crew on the Ranger, making it harder to judge the mix of brilliant and just getting by.

He needed to be blunt with someone. "I can pick out which went through fasttrack and which through the academy, with only one exception."

She pushed up his sleeve for a blood sample. "I would hope three years of academy would make a difference."

"True. But that doesn't help me here and now with the twenty seven who rushed it."

Kirk looked at her, at her brutally brush-cut hair which accentuated her high cheekbones.

He said, "On the other hand, as a presumably successful civilian, why are you here?"

"Personal reasons. That and I got tired of seeing kids come back who clearly needed better care in space. Hazard of working near San Francisco, I guess."

"I'm not going to avoid injuries to this crew, not and get anything done."

She clapped her scanner closed. "That's what we're here for."

\-------- 8888 --------

Before first shift, Kirk waited in the corridor for Riley to emerge from his quarters. 

"We need to go over some things," Kirk said to him. Riley appeared a bit stressed to hear this. Kirk took his own advice. Only what was absolutely essential.

"Stand down, First. I'll prioritize. In the meantime, what is your sense of the crew's mood?"

"It seems good, sir. Everyone is happy to be underway. What do you think of the crew?"

"There are things want to try and improve on."

They were alone, so Kirk said, "Do you have any sense of how the crew think I'm doing?"

"From what I overhear, you have their respect. Your dossier covered all the action you'd seen, your commendations. That gives people confidence considering that we are heading for patrol on the border."

"I think I need to read that dossier."

Riley held up his padd. The dates and places were familiar, the actions were too, but they seemed like they had happened to someone else. And the conflict with his superiors that inevitably followed each event was stripped away.

"A little glossy over the details," Kirk said, handing it back. He decided to trust Pritchard's instincts and worry about something else.

On the bridge, stations were being handed over, with a few complaints about control board configurations and shift assignment confusion. Kirk pretended it was normal, since he expected it to sort itself out. He began at communications, checking in on what was happening around them. The core of the UFP was the home of the big Constitution Class ships. On Comm's board, the chatter between these ships was scrolling by. Kirk resisted wondering what he'd be doing right now if he'd accepted Garrovick's offer.

Riley was on and off the bridge, handling assignments and one altercation in engineering. Kirk felt the tension growing up his back. The things he could control were dwarfed by the things he could not.

After he visited each bridge station, he felt a bit better. But the noon reports reminded him that reporting standards were not something this crew had any sense of. He'd have to start by reminding them that someone actually did read them. But sometimes if the choice was double checking a newly repaired power conduit or reporting well on said repaired conduit, one should opt for the double check. He knew that. He was only days out of being in the middle rung of reporting.

Rounding of the bridge completed, Kirk took out his padd and composed a text message to command. He handed the padd to Gall at communications and asked her to send it to Coyran's office. She seemed surprised by this, but accepted it. It was a request for news on the Sanchez. 

They continued on course. They would be in friendly territory for at almost three weeks. Not much time to make the crew hum as well as the machinery of the ship seemed to be.

\-------- 8888 --------

The Ranger's mess was a glorified wide spot in a corridor on deck five that seated slightly more than one third of the crew. The tables and chairs were welded down. The synthesizers produced substances identically remote from food as that produced on the Sanchez. Kirk chewed slowly. While she waited for a reply, Gall reported that there had been one unconfirmed sighting of the Sanchez by a private vessel, but that was all she could find.

Kelly, a crewmember from security with the bulky body of a colonist from a high gravity planet, stopped beside Kirk's table and asked if he could ask a question.

Kirk declined to point out that he'd already done so. "Have a seat, crewman."

"Thank you, sir."

Kelly sat rigidly. He had a protein drink in his hand. He self-consciously placed it on the table before him.

"I was curious about the action you saw on Wolfram T-5, sir."

The other tables quieted as did the crew standing for lack of space.

"What specifically were you curious about?"

"How did you survive the bots, sir? Was it a small drop?"

Kirk didn't want to lie about important details. "There were 130, maybe. Dropped on our team of five. I don't know what the other team faced. As usual for the rebels, entirely disproportional to the job."

"You fought that many alone and survived?"

"I wasn't alone at the beginning." The unsealed part of the log from the mission neglected to point out that his team had killed themselves. Presumably because it was damaging to morale. Kirk stuck to what was true and useful. "We faced a new kind of bot that was also explosive. Those handful led the charge, were actually hidden near the best defensive position."

Even though most of the crew weren't facing him, Kirk sensed everyone's attention.

"Did you have a cannon?"

"I had two launchers and quite a few shells that two of my team had brought along, I assume to have some fun blowing up the base, which we were ordered to do. I admit, crewman, that I don't really feel like giving you a moment by moment replay of events. It's probably better to simply tell you what best practices I learned or had reinforced."

Kelly didn't respond, just waited, listening.

"One, high ground. Get to it first. Don't yield it. Two, you can't be overarmed unless it's enough to slow you down. I was almost at that point, but not quite. On that note, backup equipment. I broke one launcher and was very glad to have two. Three, play it like you are going to win. Acting like you've lost is more likely to result in losing. Four, don't give up, no matter how overwhelmed you are. You might get lucky."

"Is that how you survived, sir? You got lucky?"

"Yes. The bots were recalled before I was finished off."

Kelly shook his head and raised his arms. "Why?"

"You sound disappointed." Kirk grinned. "I'd have to guess why they were recalled. I don't know. Maybe there was a glitch. Maybe they needed to be somewhere else. If I hadn't kept fighting as if winning were possible, I wouldn't have made it long enough to get lucky. That's my point."

"Understood, sir. Might as well go down in a blaze of glory. Too."

"Sounds good from here. But in the heat of it, that's too abstract."

"Is it?" Kelly sounded disappointed.

"Don't worry, you can always pretend it was on your mind later."

"If there is a later."

Kirk stood up. "If there isn't, it doesn't matter anyway."

From where he leaned on the bulkhead in the corner, Toyvan, the gunner, said with his mouth full, "Corpses are notoriously bad at reading their own tombstones."

Kirk sipped his glass of juice, dearly wishing it was spiked with something. He glanced at the time, trying to decide if he should rest now or try and make it through a second eight hour shift first. He rubbed his eyes. These shifts needed to change.

When he dropped his hand, Rand was holding reports out before him. But she pulled them back before he could take them.

"I feel I should withhold them until you've rested."

He smiled amiably. "I'm going to go do that. I'll take them with me. They'll put me right to sleep."

In his quarters he scrolled through the engineering reports first, before he grew any more tired. A ship was a living thing that was constantly changing and he had no choice but to keep up or risk the mission.

But memories of Wolfram were dogging him. His mind kept drifting to the battle, to that moment Spock climbed over the rocks on Kirk's right flank, hood shading his features. Despite the imminent attack, Kirk had noticed his lithe agility. Fear always made memory much clearer. So he could pick through every detail of Spock's approach, soft booted feet just grazing each boulder, elegant hands finding purchase as he clambered over the ridge and down to Kirk's position.

There were more of you. Those was the first words he'd spoken in that warm timbre. Straight to the point. Keen eyed. And unshakable in the heat of battle with no experience at it. And it wasn't that he was a robot himself. He had vulnerabilities. That unshakeable mode was due to true strength, all the more stunning for how little self-awareness he had of it.

And they had clicked so well, both in action and personally. Kirk wished dearly he had Spock beside him on this ship. But that longing was so remote from possibility it made him ache. Maybe in a distant someday, when there was peace. Spock could be accepted at the academy, could tolerate being the outsider. Maybe that wouldn't be so different for him, an awkward place to find hope.

Kirk put the padd aside and lay down on the covers of his bunk in his uniform. He rested there in the low light picturing Spock and how his features shifted subtly as he listened and talked. Those wonderful elfin features. Maybe it was his human heritage but unlike other Vulcans his features blended softly and elegantly into each other. Alien, transfixing, but so present. And so delightfully unaware of the effect he had on Kirk. 

Kirk had been careful not to stare. He'd been loathe to make Spock self-conscious, would have done anything to avoid making Spock uncomfortable. Had barely touched him, which left him short of physical memories to keep him company now.

Kirk sat up and leaned over to his monitor and queried the computer for the public feed archive. The lights rose only slightly, urging him to rest by pretending it was night. Kirk didn't want to use the Federation database, since it was logged. But his public searches came up blank. He searched for the Ambassador and found many photos of him, sometimes with Amanda, but not even a sliver of Spock in the background of any of them. A reminder of how sheltered they kept him.

With new love, Kirk always fell hard, disastrously. The next stunning being full of beauty and cunning and sexual invitation was irresistible, despite the previous heartache. He always kept adventure and responsibility ahead of him, the best remedies to an absent lover or unfulfilled longing. Travel in interesting places, meet enough interesting beings, and others always came along. Often more than one at a time. 

But this wasn't the usual hard fall. He didn't know what it was and that alarmed him a bit. He couldn't lead effectively if he didn't know himself and when he thought of Spock he felt something unexplored rising up in himself. This wasn't the usual infatuation, despite the intense fondness. He had an eerily firm control of himself around Spock. 

Would that be true in another place, other circumstances?

Kirk's body warmed to this idea. Spock in another place. A proper shore leave location, a whispering breeze, sultry warmth, a little alcohol, lots of time, and far away from both Starfleet and Vulcan. 

Spock's lips tasted of warm spices. What did the skin of his back feel like? Taut? Soft? 

Kirk stood up in one smooth movement, stripped, and found the Vulcan robe in the tall locker. He lay back on his bunk, bundled the robe, and put it to his face. He inhaled slowly and felt the world around him shift. He was back on Vulcan, but not at the estate, he was outside in the wilderness, which he had never visited. His mind put Wolfram and Vulcan together, the dust, the rocky landscape determined to slowly kill any human residing there. 

He hugged the bundled robe to his chest, felt the ship's recirculating air caress his bare skin.

Vulcan would be much hotter than ship normal, hotter than Wolfram. 

Kirk remembered with a gut twinge the hot afternoon when he'd fallen short of ions and was losing his senses. Spock's solicitous care, the clear human worry written so strangely across his alien features. It touched Kirk again now, even as much as he hated being cared for. Spock's watching over him. His alarm at Kirk's emotional strain. Kirk had managed, somehow, to reach inside Spock to where he was vulnerable to friendship, in just a matter of days, without really trying. If only he could have spent more time with him, away from his parents, his parents' servant, and haunting starvation. If only.

Kirk smiled wryly into the now complete darkness of his cabin. A few status lights glowed on the wall panels, by the door latches, but they never seemed to light anything else. 

He wanted to imagine what he would do to Spock if he had him here, and figured out part of his own reticence. Spock was a mystery and Kirk had too little faith in his own guesses about what Spock might like done to him. This was a first. Usually he was all certainty, or at least boisterously unencumbered by uncertainty. 

Kirk rolled over, pressing himself against the bedcovers, ignoring his body's desire for some other fantasy and some personal attention. He wasn't going to come up with another fantasy. 

He rested his head in the bundled robe and let exhaustion take care of the rest.


	13. Confidence

Kirk stepped into engineering and watched the strobe effect from the coils that formed the field around the warp core. The thrumming was strong enough to move his heart muscles. The ship was straining, even at warp 4.7.

Chief Engineer Loangrath, whom everyone referred to as Chief Long, glanced over her shoulder and stepped up to him. She always seemed territorial when Kirk stopped by and the impression she gave of that hadn't eased over time. Kirk nodded toward her office where it would be quieter.

Kirk said, "Commander, I checked that you were running normal shifts before I came to make this request since this is going to be a lot of work."

She didn't react. Her expression reminded Kirk of First Officer Graham despite her complexion and face shape being completely different. 

"I get the sense you don't approve of me," Kirk said. 

Her lips pursed. She was lean, almost bony, with a long graceful neck. She might have been Kirk's type in a vastly different place and time.

"I don't think so, Commander."

Kirk ignored what sounded like empty words. "I was assuming you were simply disappointed about losing Overlander, but if it's something else, I'd like to know so I can fix it. Because I can't fix that."

She didn't say anything.

"Fine," Kirk said, giving up. "I don't want to presume to tell you how to do your job, but in this one case I'm going to make an exception. Can we call a meeting with your officers. I want to explain my orders only once, if possible."

She turned and went out. Kirk waited, quite a while, standing before the wide window overlooking engineering. A small crewmember with a wide face he didn't recognize was working at a bench across from the office. He stepped out and over to her, saw that she was hand drawing circuit faces with a conductive pen to be sandwiched together into a new board. He greeted her and received an alarmed and silent gaze in return.

Ensign Jones stepped over, clearly intercepting. "Sir." 

Jones had neat parallel scars on the side of her face, one leading from the corner of her eye. They looked designed.

"I don't think I've been introduced to this crewmember as yet," Kirk said.

"This is Crewmember Darana, sir. She's our go-to for board repair and difficult to access areas."

Kirk nodded. Darana was well below the minimum human height requirement for the academy.

Darana looked between the two of them. Back and forth.

Jones said, "She's quiet. We call her Mouse."

Jones was silently working hard to make up for her shipmate, who had been kept under wraps, perhaps, during previous tours. 

Kirk smiled easily. "Very good, Jones."

Chief Long returned from the depths of engineering with three officers, gathered Jones up and they all crammed into the tiny office as if accustomed to doing so. Kirk called up the tasks he was ordering them to complete on the schematic display screen built into the wall of the office. 

"This is what I want. I want every system on this ship checked for disused channels. Including . . . . especially, is what I really mean, especially the low level ones like power distribution, inventory control, there is even a procurement monitoring channel in some of the systems. I want those closed if they are not in use, and if they are in use, such as for the warp core robots, or the food sythn supplies, I want a single key encryption manually copied to each unit and the port they use. Or I want the protocols rewritten to ensure the can carry only harmless data. And I want alarm code patched in for anything transmitting out of spec."

"On top of that, and I realize this is a lot, I want an audit of every high level channel that carries data. I want to insure that they cannot be used to transfer code. Anything that's allowed to write data to a particular protocol handler is suspect, for example. Someone might have been lazy or overly clever writing that handler."

He had four stunned faces staring back at him and one person was madly taking his own notes.

"This is very important," Kirk said. "Unless something is critical to maintaining warp, I want this prioritized higher. Before we get into any action."

He answered questions. He gave more examples until everyone was nodding in understanding. There was a lot of glancing at each other.

The officers went out. Chief Long was studying Kirk. 

"I don't think your dossier indicated you came up through engineering," she said.

"I didn't."

"You know rather esoteric details about the ship's systems."

"I do."

"And you seem to be worried about something in particular."

"I am."

She thought for a long while, then nodded. "You may presume, on occasion to tell me how to do my job, sir. On occasion."

"I don't expect to need to. But what I would like is more details on repairs and changes that might affect performance. Don't skimp on the details like you are doing now. I can handle them and if I can't that's my problem, not yours."

"Will do, sir." She seemed eager, as if rising to a challenge. Kirk worried what her first report was going to be like.

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk attempted some one-on-one mentoring on the subject of reporting. He had three of his lieutenants at a mess table, forcing them to study examples of what their more recent reports would better read like. They seemed reluctant to care. Two of them had been through the academy, so maybe this was a problem every commander had. Maybe he had been equally guilty.

Kirk said, "The balance between survival and procedure takes time to work out. But in the end we live and die on information. How about this. I'm ordering you this week, while its relatively quiet, to get written reports from two people below you. Every day." He paused. "Yes, they will hate you, but it will be healthy for them. It's better than boredom."

Back on the bridge, shift change was in progress and this reminded Kirk of other things he was determined to fix while there was time.

He said to Rand, "Come with me, I want to better sort out the duty roster." He tilted his head in the direction of the lift.

Rand stopped before the open doors.

"I want to state now that I am not one to engage in any hanky panky."

The bridge crew turned, not with gazes looking for spectacle, but with curious concern. He was the outsider, not her.

"Good. Neither am I."

In the corridor, Kirk said, "The conference room was converted to storage during the retrofit. We'll have to meet in my quarters. I assume you know that."

She set her shoulders and followed him inside.

He pulled down a seat for her and sat on his bunk. He raised the padd and began rearranging columns of names. He was intentionally revising without Riley's input until he had a chance to think it through on his own.

Kirk said, "How long has the ship been using two-on, one-off shifts of 8 hours?"

"At least a year, since I came on board."

"Seems like 12 on 12 off would be less exhausting. Or a two in one on a 24 hour clock."

"People trade off often, but there is heavy use of stimulants."

"I don't want that unless we are in a crisis. Do we really lack the personnel to staff the shifts more reasonably?"

He played with the columns. The names didn't all immediately pop up faces and that irked him. He also didn't know who would dislike being with whom. 

Rand said, "I was deadly serious back on the bridge, sir."

"So was I. What compelled you to announce it in general?"

"There has been talk."

"It's been a week. If the crew are that bored already, it's time to start running drills. I wasn't sure when to add to the burden of a refurbished ship and new captain, but now I know." He gave her a clever smile.

She stared at him, unmoved. Her hands were flat on her thighs. Her posture perfect. He was starting to sense damage more than disappointment.

Kirk set the padd aside. "Would it make you feel any better if I told you I left a boyfriend behind at my previous port of call?"

"I'm not sure I believe you. I've seen you looking."

"At you?"

She lowered her eyelids. "No."

"Well, to be honest, my type is actually anyone who is attractive in some unique way. Gender, race, planetary origin, alien genotype, none of that seems to matter. But I assure you that while you're attractive, we have to work together, and my policy will be 100% hands off. Does that help?"

She hesitated. "I don't know yet if your word means anything."

"True. I expect time will take care of that. But the rumor mill is a different issue. Denials only feed the beast." He picked up the padd again. "Is there someone on the ship you have your eye on?"

She sat straighter, brows angled. "No, sir."

"Well, try and consider the rumors an inconvenience that buys you a hands off policy from everyone else on board."

She opened her mouth, thought about it more, and closed it again. "You think a lot of yourself. Sir."

"This isn't a position for someone who doesn't."

\-------- 8888 --------

"Sir?"

Kirk turned. Gall was approaching him along the corridor outside his quarters.

"We received a secure, but unsourced transmission addressed to you."

"What encryption was used?"

She hesitated as if surprised by the question. "One of Starfleet's old public schemes, so decoding wasn't an issue. I'm bringing it to your attention because I haven't asked you how you wish to handle stray traffic, which we get now and then. And this one was addressed to you by name."

"Do you have it?"

"It's short. It's: Son missing. Do you know his location?"

Kirk looked away, controlling the outward appearance of his worry. Spock. What had he gone and done?

"The message makes sense to you, sir?"

"Yes. The reply is 'no'. Can you reply to it?"

"I can try reversing the header data and sending it back through the same node while it is still in range."

"Go ahead and try that. And amend the message to be "Unfortunately, no."

She nodded. "It's not your son is it?"

Kirk stared. "How old do you think I am?"

She blushed. "You. Might have. Started young, sir."

"Even really young . . . " He laughed. Being given command must have added ten years to the way everyone looked at him. "I suppose an eight year old could go missing." He patted her arm. He shouldn't have reacted. "Try the reply."

Her words stopped him from moving on. "Is the message a security breach, sir. It did come in through Starfleet's relay."

"No. I wouldn't consider it a breach. It's someone who is allowed to communicate with all sorts of people. And yes, I'd like to see all messages of this sort in the future."

Her curiosity was plain on her face, but she said nothing else.

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk sat down at lunch with some off-duty bridge crew when he overheard them complaining about the drills. He gave up on wondering why he needed to explain the importance of drills at all, and that helped his sanity. And improved the tone of patience in his voice.

"It always feels like busy work," the second shift gunner said.

"It's essential to working well, or sometimes at all, when placed under high stress," Kirk explained. "You don't rise to the occasion in a crisis, you descend to your routines. If you don't have any, you become useless at worst, or at best, clumsy and slow." He snapped his fingers. "Every important function at every station, should happen just like that. No thought, just action. At least for the critical functions."

There was one audible sigh. 

Kirk said, "It will become clear when you've seen a bit of action how critical it is, until then consider it a competition. We're pitting the shifts against each other."

"Is there a prize?"

"If bragging rights isn't a good enough prize, I can't help you."

Kirk had yet to eat. He stood to get something quick and get back to the bridge. As he waited for the synthesizer, he tried to picture where Spock was at that moment. Had he gotten transport to earth? Kirk again distinctly remembered selling Spock on Starfleet, and a twinge of guilt plucked hard at his chest. Spock might be home and safe if Kirk hadn't rambled on so many times about how valuable Spock would be.

Ensign Glissen, the second in command of security, approached the synthesizers as Kirk's food appeared. She had a girl next door look about her.

Kirk set the tray on one of the makeshift shelves formed by narrow storage containers that were bolted to the wall, and took a bite.

Glissen said, "I'm curious about your Karagite medal, sir. You were awarded that for action you saw on Tellun 6, right?"

Kirk sensed a pattern developing with members of security. He swallowed, held his food out to keep the crumbs off his uniform. "I was supposed to be a mere ensign in a squad guarding the groom in a royal wedding of sorts, but I ended up babysitting the bride."

"That doesn't sound particularly difficult."

Kirk finished off another large bite. "You've never met the bride. She tried to stab me. Twice. Then she poisoned me with her tears." Kirk tried to sound sober as he recounted this. A grin would ruin the retelling.

Glissen looked vaguely ill. "You got a heroism medal for that, sir?"

"No. I got it for the firefight that broke out after the pirates the Klingons outfitted for a raid took everyone hostage. Despite losing our team's lieutenant commander and lieutenant, and facing pirates better armed than we imagined, we managed to out-maneuver and kill most of them. They had no interest in surrendering given that it was fight us or face their Klingon sponsors, so they fought us to the last man. Then I ran through a burning palace to drag the princess's spoiled little ass out of there so the wedding to bring peace between Tellun 6 and 7 could go off without any further hitches." 

He left out that he'd had no choice but to run into the burning palace. He'd been chemically infatuated with Elan, a condition sweating in the flames cured. But he'd still found and dragged her out after his mind had been freed. He could still remember that moment there, the tapestries aflame at the edges, distorting into great blackened curls, sending glowing ash adrift in the castle's great hall. He'd almost walked away. Almost. He'd decided in that moment that he wanted to be the person he'd imagined he could be. He couldn't live with anything else.

Kirk covered for his silence by saying, "Worst mission I've ever been on. I'd take on a horde of armored lizard men armed only with a dull knife before I babysit an uncivilized, entitled, and unwilling bride-to-be ever again."

"I see, sir."

"Bringing peace to a star system does seem to up the grade of medal handed out." He shrugged, took another bite. "Apparently."


	14. Personal Challenge

"We've been sent revised orders, sir," came the voice from the communications panel.

Kirk thought someone should take care of that, and a long moment later realized that meant him.

"Acknowledged. Inform Nav and have them plot a course. I'll be on the bridge in a few minutes."

Nearly three weeks into the mission, and he still hadn't gotten himself accustomed to his own role. He needed captain drills.

As he stepped out of the lift, Rand handed him a padd with the orders up on the screen. They were to patrol the spacelanes leading from Vulcan to Antares. The Federation was expected to rule on an expanded restricted space for Vulcan ships within the next few days and wanted a show of force ready.

Kirk took his seat. "Put a sectional of the major spacelanes on the main screen, Nav."

There was a red blob around earth showing the current restricted space. An orange amoeba-like overlay lit up. It was a significant expansion that looked less designed to protect earth and more designed to box Vulcan in except on the side of less-explored space. Kirk breathed in, and held it. There was no chance Spock would get a fair hearing at Starfleet under these circumstances. If he found the right person, he could easily convince them that he'd written the virus, not Kirk, but he'd never get the chance. Assuming he made it to earth in the first place.

Kirk said, "Adjust course to 191 mark 3, Helm, and take us along just on top of the new zone relative to that projection."

Spock might be out here somewhere. But the odds of finding him were too astronomical to consider and that made Kirk's gut heavy.

Kirk said, "Once we're on course, I want another round of drills. More maneuvering drills run on simulation. That's this ship's strength, and I want it at our disposal when we need it." 

I also dearly need the distraction, Kirk thought.

\-------- 8888 -------

The crew had finally accepted the idea of competition during drills as evidenced by the friendly taunting between the shifts. Kirk hid his smile when he overheard it the first time, turned a dubious expression to the two groups who were sparring as if to say they both had something to prove to him.

Kirk didn't like being in his quarters unless he was asleep because it left him too much time to think. And worry. And feel guilty. But he was there when Gall came during second shift.

"Another coded message, sir." She held out a tape.

Kirk accepted it and told her to wait. But it wasn't from Sarek, it was from Admiral Coyran. Kirk used his own biometric id to finish decrypting the message. It was short. Intelligence had determined that the Sanchez had been captured and the crew taken prisoner, likely as forced labor as there had been indications that the rebels were running short of skilled labor. Kirk's fireteam had been targeted to make the usual horrific example the colonists liked to make for those who came after. This had subsequently happened to a remote colony world as well: the technically skilled had been removed, alive and unharmed, before the colony was destroyed.

Kirk tried to picture what his old shipmates were doing right then, perhaps working at phaser point to repair rebel colony ships. 

"Is there a reply to send, sir?"

"No. No reply. Thank you, Ensign."

Alone again, he lay down on his bunk and put his hands on his face and let his mind drift. There had to be something he could do for all the people he was worried about, for the Federation itself. If he had more information. If he thought hard enough. There had to be something.

\-------- 8888 -------

First shift was reasonably alert at their stations despite it being day six of patrol. Or perhaps it was because their boards were no longer in simulation mode and might actually show them something novel.

The forward screen was split four ways with front and rear views, the chatter feeds between nearby ships, and the three dimensional projection of the newly restricted zone. They had started out cruising in convoy with the USS Fly before splitting up. Now there were no friendlies within two days at full warp speed. The darkened bridge, with its reassuring lights and electronic noises, felt a small oasis in a very big and empty galaxy. Kirk hoped the crew wasn't feeling that way too. He wasn't sure how he would tell. He hoped it was a symptom of applying too much imagination to his situation and for the first time understood why commanders never encouraged that.

"A blip, Captain."

"Which side of the zone?"

"Their side, sir."

That phrasing irked him, but what could he say? It's not really us versus them? They had been staring at a virtual border on the screen for days.

"Put a marker on it."

An orange bracket box appeared on two of the screens around what appeared to be empty space.

Over the course of an hour, the blip grew closer. Kirk had been watching the feeds. Nearby ships were negotiating to exchange supplies, some of the codes like "soap" he knew were for contraband alcohol. A ship had given chase to what was likely a smuggler, but the location data was stripped. Another ship had engine trouble, which prompted some mocking. This was followed by a coded note about missing a rendezvous, then no more communications about it, as it would have moved to the encrypted channels.

"Full ID, sir."

A tag appeared showing a registration number in both Vulcan and Standard, but nothing else, unlike a private federation vessel where it would display ownership and filed flight plan and last ports of call.

"Should we go to alert, sir?" Gunner asked.

"Do sensors show ADaM is armed?" Kirk plucked out the letters from the mix of letters and numbers in the registration to make up a name.

"No, sir."

"Then there is no reason to go to alert."

Helm said, "ADaM is going to pass within . . ." She paused to double check. "Within 100 meters of banned space, sir."

"Thank you, Helm."

Kirk waited. He could sense the desire to argue, assumed it would come from Toyvan. But it was many minutes of strained silence.

"Captain, sir, you don't think that is provocative?"

"That they have highly precise navigational abilities? No."

Helm hadn't given up either. "This is their course on screen, sir. They could easily remain farther inside allowed space."

"Maybe there is a radioactive asteroid in their path. I don't care the reason. They are remaining on their side. We are remaining on our side. Everything is as it should be." He could hear in his voice that he was losing patience, and he absolutely couldn't afford that. This wasn't about emotion.

The lower screen switched to showing a magnification of the Vulcan ship. It was square and bulky with three engines, one on each upper aft corner and in the bottom middle. Meant to stay in space, not enter atmosphere, and by no means land under the force of gravity. Crew of three according to the expanding nav tag.

Toyvan seemed to speak to himself. "One-hundred meters is insanely tight in open space."

Kirk stood up and went to stand beside the gunner's station. He tried to sound friendly. "Even if they are intentionally trying to make a point, it's our job to enforce the rules as they are without regard to whether we somehow feel insulted about how the rules are followed. Given the disproportionate force of arms on our side, we can afford to be pretty solicitous. Don't you think?"

His face twisted. "Solicitous, sir?"

"Yes. While they have significant navigational shielding, we could destroy them easily and they could do nothing about it. That is significantly provocative, but on our part. The only way to counterbalance that is to be solicitous."

Toyvan didn't appear convinced. He put his hands on the sides of his board and rested them there as if waiting for Kirk to return to the center chair.

"Where are you from, Gunner?"

"Minnesota, sir."

"Grew up in a city?"

"No, sir."

"Imagine you are still a boy back home and you are taking a pod scooter to your friend's house, but the shortest route goes by a neighbor who, when he sees you turning the corner, tends to come stand out at the very edge of his property line holding his antique laser pistol. Now, it's true, he keeps it pointed at the ground and he just watches you cruise by. And he never does anything more than stare at you. But you've got nothing but the transparent aluminum dome of your cruiser to protect you."

Toyvan's lips pulled thin. "In that circumstance, I wouldn't drive at the very edge of the road, sir. I still don't like how close they are cutting it."

"You don't have to like it. You just have to sit idly by while you don't like it."

Nav sounded concerned. "Are you saying we're the crazy neighbor, Captain?"

"I didn't say the neighbor was crazy. I said nothing about his motives or state of mind. Only his actions."

Nav turned back to his board. "I suppose you didn't, sir."

The ship and its orange box flickered by on the screen and made a turn to neatly follow the edge of the restricted zone.

Helm said, "When you put it that way, sir. It's surprising how trusting they are being."

Kirk put his chin on his hand. "Yes, they are. I don't intend to make it misplaced."

\-------- 8888 -------

It was oh two hundred the next morning before Kirk got some dinner. There were a handful of security and engineering sitting around the tables, but not sharing tables. Kirk could tell this at a glance now without examining badges, despite the identical uniforms. Two first shift bridge crew were hunched over, playing cards, like sleep was eluding them.

Kirk sat down with a relieved sigh he should have avoided emitting and ate whatever the synthesizers had spit out without thinking about what it tasted like. He just needed to eat.

Yarrow, the head of security, complete with tiger stripes, stood up and joined Kirk at his table.

"I'm curious about something, sir."

Kirk knew where this was going. He mentally inventoried what interesting medals were left unasked about.

"Let me guess, the Antaras Cluster?"

"No sir. I was wondering about Tarsus 4."

Kirk's chest, his heart, his stomach, all became excruciatingly tight. He covered it well, he thought, and put his food down on the tray. There was no way he could swallow if he took a bite. He used his napkin and tossed it casually back into his lap. Everyone had gone silent. Chairs creaked as people turned.

Kirk said, "You must have done some digging. That isn't in my Starfleet record. At least, not in the portion that's easily accessible."

"Just a simple public records search of your name, sir. Wasn't sure it was you among the survivors' list." He paused with clear intentionality. "Until now."

"It was." 

More eyes turned their way and grew more curious and more startled. Kirk kept breathing, slow and steady, but not too deeply, which would be a giveaway.

Kirk said, "There's not much to say. I was fourteen. The history books paint it pretty well by my memory."

"Did you see him? What was he like?"

"I did. Several times before the fungus struck. He knew my host family, although mostly as political opposites he was often trying to convince of his ideas. His arguments were pandering and pontificating. It wasn't very effective one on one." 

"So, what didn't the history books include?"

"Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society." Kirk quoted. He was getting ensnared in memory, and had to say something more. "Kodos had to convince some percent of the populace to support his plan. He did this with emotional speeches that divided the colonists. Anyone with influence who questioned him was suspect. I remember that about him, that twisted charisma. He was quite an orator."

Kirk worked to put together what he really wanted to say. He hadn't thought about those events for a long time and, reviewing them now as a full adult with his own leadership responsibilities, he was coming up with new realizations.

"Certainly, he was drunk on power. That was part of it. But, it was more than that. Once a few of his lieutenants were certain they were among the chosen ones, they became zealots and egged him on. That was honestly more frightening than Kodos himself, how quickly otherwise civilized seeming people will turn on their neighbors if it will keep them alive to do so, if it gives them the power to control their own mortality by controlling others'."

Kirk met Yarrow's gaze again. "I didn't do anything heroic. I survived. I was helped to hide by someone who was later executed."

"So, you weren't one of the chosen ones, deemed worthy of surviving by those in charge."

"I honestly don't know. Or care. Or perhaps I'd prefer to not be. I was the guest of one of Kodos' most vocal opponents against his original declaration of martial law. That was enough to doom everyone affiliated with her."

Yarrow nodded, crossed his arms.

Someone at another table cleared his throat and asked, "Why were you there?"

Kirk laughed wryly. "I wanted to get out of Iowa, get out to the stars. The opportunity came up to visit a colony world for a year with a friend of the family and I took it. I was just terribly unlucky. As were a lot of others."

Kirk stood, casually cleared his place. Yarrow watched him from his seated, cross-armed position, legs spread. Kirk assumed he'd heard about Kirk's speech on the bridge and was testing him. The other crew were gradually returning to their conversations and games. This wasn't the sort of history that would raise their view of him; it would make them worry he wasn't really stable deep down. 

"Any other questions, Lieutenant? No one ever drowned my puppy or burned the barn with all the animals in it when I was a boy, in case you were wondering."

Glissen at the security table and a few of the engineering crew broke out into grins and snickers.

Yarrow stood up. He was of below average height, just a hair taller than Kirk, but he moved like a big guy. "I was just curious, sir."

"Curiosity is fine." 

Challenging me with a view to tearing me down in the eyes of the crew is not, Kirk thought.


	15. Bad Orders

Patrol along the Vulcan exclusion zone continued for a quiet and increasingly tedious five and a half weeks. Kirk had to change command tactics several times to keep mental discipline on the bridge, and he worried what might be slipping below decks. They happened to cross within a hundred million klicks of the USS Wasp which was also on patrol in the area and did a goods exchange. Otherwise they only saw vessels at a great distance, sometimes too far away to identify them and would set an intercept course until an id could be made and then, disappointed, continue on their way. The Vulcan flagged traffic they observed was now always near the center of the allowed corridor.

The chatter feeds from the ships in earth sector grew quieter. More than half of the Mercury and Constitution class ships had been pulled away to do clean up on the peripheral colonies that were surrendering. Lack of supplies was undoubtedly taxing their will to fight.

Bot attacks had fallen off, but the main rebel colonist base where the bulk of the attack bots were being constructed had not been found, and as long as that remained elusive, so did complete victory. With rebel territory shrinking, the feeds sounded upbeat, more mocking and less virulent. Kirk didn't like seeing Starfleet's stance relax. The colonists could be holding back, planning something significant.

The Militants made several attacks well inside Federation space and retreated again, untouched. With the bigger ships occupied elsewhere, they had more time to fully destroy things, and if the station was occupied, break a few necks, a calling card more effective than the colonists' sliced up bodies because it seemed more personal and people weren't as inured to it. Worse yet, the public were fed up in general and calling for the Federation to take further action.

Kirk grew to hate his quarters. On the worst days before retreating to them, he forced himself into an exhausted state where he was certain he couldn't remain awake a moment longer. With the lights lowered and his tired head down on his bunk, his mind helplessly replayed conversations with Spock interspersed with how he moved beneath his robes. Kirk buried his face in the Vulcan robes desperate to recapture the alien-calm sensation when Spock had sat too close.

He became obsessed with that feeling. He instructed the computer to play everything in the databanks about Vulcan telepathy, until it was translating ancient mystic texts in clumsy Standard that sounded like Early Modern English. He fell asleep to these many nights.

No matter how clear his memory of those moments, no matter how much he learned about the Vulcan telepathic aura, that sense of calm escaped him. When he tried hardest to capture it, he felt every emotion on the spectrum opposite calm. If nothing else these horribly uneasy feelings could be called up at will whenever he felt himself slacking on some mundane task.

Despite being close to Vulcan and bordering on Federation space, the Militants were unlikely to operate in the Ranger's patrol corridor above the galactic plane as there was nothing here besides a few listening stations, star systems that were uninhabitable due to high radiation, and a sparsely used long-haul cargo route to a densely inhabited cluster on the Perseus Arm. Kirk had pulled up the databases several times to check, adjusting their course to better protect the few assets in the area. The Ranger was so poorly assigned he wondered if she and their sister ships were being held in reserve here. If so, he dearly hoped it wasn't for a surprise, coordinated Federation attack in Vulcan space. Strategically, that was the most likely reason.

The day this thought occurred to him, he snapped at Riley over something minor. He'd apologized immediately. But the anxiety the notion brought on made Kirk bury himself in his worry on duty and off.

Chapel called him into sickbay, seeming bored as she told him to sit the hell down after he declined to do so the first time.

"Your first expressed concern about your state of mind. I don't have any choice but to harass you about it in return."

"I'm glad you take your job so seriously," Kirk said.

"I'm not a human psychologist."

"Are you a xeno psychologist then?" Her swearing at him had opened the floodgates. But it felt good to not care what he said for a change.

"We're not discussing me." She leaned sideways against one of the examining tables and crossed her arms. "How are things with the tall blonde yeoman?"

Kirk let his face show his confusion. "Fine."

"She's gotten a bit distant. I noticed."

"She's always been that. And that's fine."

"So this isn't a breakup issue."

"Not exactly."

"What is it then?"

"This conversation can be shared with command, but you cannot share it with the crew, correct? Especially my sensitive but well-meaning first officer?"

She sounded more bored. "Correct."

"I decided that the most likely strategic reason to park us and our sister ships here in a useless area of space that just happens to be above Vulcan on the galactic plane is to use us for a surprise attack on Vulcan or one of their assets. That's been haunting me a bit. If another reason for our patrol appears I'll be eternally grateful to learn of it."

She dropped her arms and her eyes widened. "There's no way."

"I tell myself that, but I can't shake it. It's like a chess board that's been set up. So, yes, I've been a bit snippy. I get a command like that, I'll mutiny. I honestly don't know if this crew would be with me or not."

"I'll personally sedate the ones that aren't."

"Then what, fly in and try and defend Vulcan? Yes, I guess so." Kirk thought that over. "Yes, I think I'd do that. Tough to defend if you are trying not to harm your opponent, but if I have to go down that way, I can accept it."

Kirk felt a rush of relief. He'd identified the worst outcome and accepted it.

"Thank you, Doctor. I think I just needed to establish that."

"I thought I was going to hear about a blonde and certainly wasn't going to lose any sleep."

"Trust me. You won't be hearing about any blondes from me."

\------- 8888 --------

Kirk was on the bridge when their new orders came in. They were given a set of coordinates a hundred light years away and requested to make best speed there. Thankfully, closer to Federation space and slightly away from Vulcan.

"Helm, plot a course. Comm, acknowledge that we are complying."

"Regarding the orders, sir . . ." Gall said.

Kirk stepped over to communications, wondering what that uncertain tone of voice meant.

She pulled the orders up and pointed at the screen. Kirk bent to read it a second time. It specifically requested that they not acknowledge the orders or communicate their position to command until further ordered to. The orders were also missing two major sections, Who and Why.

"Straightforward enough. Comply with that, Ensign."

"Yes, sir."

The warp drive thrummed louder as their warp increased.

"Nav, speed made good?"

"Warp 4.96 sir, we are doing well because we're in an empty area of space. But that won't last. Total time in warp will be six days, two hours, sir."

"Anything near that location?"

"No sir. It is three light years from any navigationally relevant object."

Kirk did not reveal the strangeness of the orders when he addressed Nav, but it gnawed at him, and keeping his concerns secret gnawed at him. As a Lieutenant, he'd want to be respected enough to be told.

At the shift change, Kirk told everyone to remain. This took twenty minutes due to the usual sloppy staggering of station changes, which Kirk had decided was an advantage as it made sure everyone had some familiarity with working with everyone else as well as avoided multiple boards being reconfigured at the same time.

Kirk said, "We have been issued new orders with no specifics, as of yet. I'm going to remind everyone that nothing this ship is doing should be going out in personal communications. Yes, the computer is supposed to filter, but it's not perfect. Better not to risk it."

He looked around at them crowded there between the consoles, faces in various states of alertness and more than the usual curiosity.

"I'm going to be honest with you, and tell you that the brevity of these orders and other circumstances of them make me a little concerned. So, while we are in neutral space for a few days we are going to be running weapons drills combined with maneuvering drills and not in simulation mode. I know everyone likes the feel of the ride this ship doles out on high impulse, but we're going to fine tune the artificial gravity to cancel that out as much as possible. We had a long break from drills while on patrol and I can see the boards aren't as sharp as they were. Given our small size, we are likely being called in for support for someone with a lot more firepower than us, which means we need to be even sharper than normal to avoid friendly fire damage and be useful at the same time."

Helm raised her hand. "So, we are being ordered to empty space and this is a concern?"

"Trust me. When your orders don't make any sense, that's when things are about to become the most dangerous."

\------- 8888 --------

Kirk sat in his quarters, determined to get in normal rest and break periods while he could. But his empty quarters were as painfully empty as ever.

He put the endless status reports aside and rubbed his eyes. He longed to talk with Spock. By now he must have settled somewhere. If he were back home, Kirk assumed Sarek would have managed another message to that effect. The Vulcan was a diplomat and certainly understood proper communication.

Kirk found himself talking to Spock in his imagination and almost paged Riley to his quarters for company instead, but his first also needed a break and jawboning with his commander wouldn't be restful for Riley, who still nursed an overly worshipful attitude. He could page Rand, but she'd become a bastion of quiet competence completely lacking in personal touch that might as well be a giant "keep away" sign.

If Kirk had any idea where Spock was, he'd feel a hell of a lot better. He imagined for the hundredth time the most likely scenario, Spock had gone to earth, and failing to get a fair hearing about applying at the academy, had simply remained there rather than go home and admit defeat. San Francisco certainly was home to all kinds, including Vulcans. They hadn't been kicked off earth, by any means. Although they might meet with a more than usual unsociable attitude given interplanetary tensions.

This scenario let Kirk relax, a little. Spock was not street smart, but he was a fast learner. And he would be difficult to overpower if he truly got into a bad situation. And he was brilliant at exactly what every company in the area around Starfleet needed most, so he should be able to find work easily.

Kirk tried to picture Spock in some company computing lab and it simply didn't fit in his mind properly. It made sense. It would sooth Kirk's guilty fears. But he simply could not picture it.

What he could picture was Spock in trouble.

Of course, the Federation itself was in trouble, so maybe Spock should just join the club and Kirk should get on with focusing on the things he could have an impact on.

Kirk spoke to the empty room. "Wherever you are, please be careful. And if you can't be careful, please be smart. Trust yourself and no one else."

\------- 8888 --------

"Sensors indicate two ships ahead of us, sir. They are hailing us. Spitfire and Wasp."

"Put it on screen."

The screen split showed two bridges identical to their own. One had the familiar black bearded face of Commander Ashe from their previous patrol encounter with them and the other had a pony-tailed woman with slightly Asian features accented by make-up into something more exotic.

"Greetings again, Commander Ashe," Kirk said. "Pleased to meet you, Commander Yabe."

"There doesn't seem to be anything here," Commander Ashe said. "Anyone know why we are?" Ashe was the only full commander among them and he spoke like he expected to be in charge.

"We have further orders," Yabe said. "They were sent a few hours before the orders to come here."

"Strange," Ashe said. "We didn't receive anything. Did you, Kirk?"

"No."

Yabe said, "The first orders weren't a warning order, they were more detailed than the second."

"Send me a copy of both." Ashe sounded grumpy. He looked over a padd his yeoman handed him. "Neither order is signed except as Starfleet, Earth. But these aren't minor positional or warning orders."

"I don't like this," Kirk said. His bridge crew turned their heads to him. He shouldn't have spoken so bluntly.

"Spitfire was originally to proceed to the following coordinates." Ashe listed them off. "Says there is an anomaly to investigate reported by a passing private vessel. Verify and report on possible hazardous nature of said anomaly." He lowered the padd. "Unless it's a dangerous area of space. This is a job for a survey ship."

"Maybe Spitfire was simply closer," Yabe said.

"Possible," Ashe said. "But this is barely a space route worthy of worrying about a random hazard at a time like this. And why are three ships sitting here now, with no detailed orders?"

Kirk pressed his fingers into his eyes, into the sides of the bridge of his nose. The other two commanders remained silent until he dropped his hands.

Ashe said, "Well, we can't find out what's going on without going to the original coordinates."

"Agreed," Kirk said. The course had come up on the screen below the Nav board. "If I may, Commander Ashe, I propose we drop out of warp at 224 mark nine and continue at full impulse with shields raised."

Yabe pulled her head back. "That will require an extra twelve hours."

Kirk said, "Do the orders contain another rendezvous? Do they contain anything to do with timing?"

"They say 'Best Speed', just like the second set."

Kirk said, "That usually has an implicit 'best safe speed.' I would argue."

Ashe looked down off the screen, spoke to his helm. "Well, Kirk. I feel I should give the hero of the battle of Wolfram the benefit of the doubt and cater to his overly careful attitude. On that account, keep the chatter to the bare minimum and only on low power. I think I know what Kirk is thinking. So let's keep the formation tight. We all have small warp fields, so we can stay in pretty close."

Kirk nodded at the helm to execute that and sat back, chin on his fist. That had gone well. Maybe he just set off superiors in person.

\------- 8888 --------

With the warp fields fine tuned, they managed to make warp 5.03 as a unit and sustained it for fifty-five hours. Kirk continued to prefer his twenty hours on, four off schedule. It let him sleep so soundly dreams didn't wake him. He swapped the shifts around to have first shift on the bridge when they were scheduled to drop out of warp.

Minutes before they went to impulse, Kirk pressed the intraship button.

"This is Commander Kirk, we are about to go to yellow alert. We'll likely be under it for twelve hours. I know it's tough to maintain proper mental alertness for that long. This is going to be one of those twenty four hours of boredom, thirty seconds of sheer terror days you all live for or you wouldn't have joined up. Maybe absolutely nothing will happen. I don't know what odds Mr. Toyvan is quoting today, but if it's anything better that 1 to 1, you should sign up to take his money."

Kirk glanced at his gunner, who was blushing with his head down.

"I'd tell you what to expect if I knew what it was. The worst thing each of you can do right now is assume you know. I know zero. You know zero. Be ready to adapt to information when it comes in. Adapt quickly like your life depends on it. Kirk out."

They dropped out of warp and tightened up the formation.

"Are we trying to look like one ship, sir?" Nav asked.

"If at all possible. I think only one ship is supposed to be here. Likely the Spitfire."

"Sir, why were orders given . . . that seems sort of--"

"Lieutenant. We're worrying only about us right now. Starfleet Command is a long way away."

"Yes, sir."

Kirk looked at the wireframe schematic on the nav board. That's why three identical ships were selected. We look like a nice neat package on long-range sensors. And what the hell was going on at Starfleet?

Ten hours eleven minutes after dropping out of warp, Scanner said, "Something on sensors, sir. A ship, with an unusual engine signature."

"Do we have something to put on screen?"

A boxy ship with backsweeping oval nacelles came up, flickering because of the distance. It was the familiar colony ship design, but with a translucent bubble attached to the aft that was entirely new.

"You mentioned unexpected, sir," Scanner said. Then his voice shifted. "Three more ships, sir. Coming in on a boxing in maneuver."

"Helm, prepare to split away from the Wasp and Spitfire. On my signal. We want the enemy committed."

"We're outnumbered, sir."

"Not as badly as they are expecting."

The Wasp peeled downward.

"Helm, take us mark 33 and a half. Full impulse."

The ship heaved over to the left, and the gravity almost compensated.

"Yee haw," Gunner whispered. "I have targets, sir."

"Watch the courses of the friendlies. That wasn't something we've drilled on. Don't take a shot unless you are 100% certain."

The ship shook as phasers came across the forward hull.

"Shields at?"

"Eighty percent, sir."

"I want an update, every hit, Helm. Gunner, you have a target you may fire."

"Topside phasers are stronger. Target is below us."

"Helm, turn us belly over and turn to mark 4. Get us back in the fray."

The phasers shot out, struck across the rebel ship and scattered.

"Even hit that strange pod. No apparent damage," Scanner said.

"Keep firing. Helm stay with them. Try to concentrate the shots, overwhelm one area of shielding."

The starscape on the forward screen rotated around as they followed the rebel ship, phasers firing as often as the banks could be recharged.

"Captain, Wasp's forward shields have failed."

Kirk pounded the arm rests of his chair once with his fists. "Helm break engagement and bring us around to the Wasp. Where is she?" As he said this he found her on the screen turning while being chased. Most of the fire coming after her aft side missed the mark.

Kirk didn't consciously slide forward out of his chair, but he found himself standing before it, one hand on it for stability while they maneuvered. An enemy ship was coming around and Wasp wasn't dodging fast enough to avoid exposing their forward hull to fire, which would cut them open like tinfoil.

"Match Wasp's course as best you can. Get us between them and that incoming bogey and get ready to fire, Gunner. If they sense a kill they may come in too close. Pull the focus tighter to account for the shorter distance. No reason to go easy on them."

On the screen, three ships converged. The deck heaved as they turned to pace Wasp and the colony ship closed, firing across Ranger's disk. Gunner returned fire. The beams splayed, contacted, narrowed. There was a burst and a flash and the colony ship began to tumble.

"Evasive!"

But they were right above Wasp. The best they could do was tighten up the gap. Collision warnings shrieked from multiple bridge panels. The Colony ship cartwheeled by the viewscreen, giant for a moment. Kirk couldn't help ducking.

"Helm, get some space with the Wasp." He looked at the Nav screen. "Where's the Spitfire?"

"She's given chase to a ship they damaged. The other two enemy ships have retreated out of firing range and are circling."

"Mark 70, sir, the bogey has recovered attitude."

"That's unfortunate."

"They've warped away, sir."

"Note their vector."

The Nav screen contained just them and the Wasp now in wireframe.

"Sir?"

"Hold position. How are Wasp's shields? What's her damage?"

"Minor damage. No hull breach. Mostly seems to be the shields themselves that are damaged and that will keep them out of warp."

"Enemy ships still circling?"

"Yes, sir."

"If I were them, I'd attack again. We can't maneuver and protect Wasp at the same time. Hail Spitfire, strongly suggest they break off engagement and return. We need superior numbers to dissuade them."

"Commander Ashe has already done so, sir."

"Ah, good."

Spitfire came flying back into their midst, executing a stylish hooking maneuver to swing in and flank Wasp, facing outward.

The two remaining enemy ships warped away.


	16. Theories

"We should give chase to the most damaged of the enemy ships." Ashe said when Ranger answered their hail.

"You will have to follow close to get behind someone else's navigational shielding," Yabe said. "Even then, still risky."

"How long to make repairs?" Kirk asked.

Ashe spoke through clenched teeth. "I don't want all of them to get away."

"We have the vector of the ship we hit and temporarily disabled. We'll send it on," Kirk said.

"Plot a course and lay it in."

Everyone on the Ranger bridge went back into action as if they were still in a dogfight. Kirk was pleased to see the crisp movements and coordination he'd wanted all along.

Spitfire led the Wasp. Ranger took up the starboard wing. They only made warp 4.3 and if they didn't see their target within an hour there was no point in continuing to pursue.

Ashe hailed them at the one hour mark, "We are detecting excessive nitrogen and other ions, let's hope she had a hull breach. The highest concentration is slightly off our course. We will send telemetry."

Everyone on the bridge remained alert and focused. Engineering changed over at the shift change due to fatigue. 

"Something ahead," Scanner said hours later.

"Prepare to drop out of warp."

They encountered a drifting colony ship, the strange sphere on the back burnt out like a torched eggshell.

"Two life signs."

"Whose security most needs some action?" Ashe asked.

"Mine," Kirk said.

Down in security, Kirk watched preparations. With plate and masks and multiple weapons each there was no point in the empty words 'be prepared for anything.'

Kirk said, "I suggest sending over a scout, in case it's a trap."

"Yes, sir. I'll go," Yarrow said as he tugged his plate straps to balance them. "Can't very well send someone else."

Kirk thought, yes you can. But security was a bit like engineering, his instinct was to remain hands off.

"Feeling expendable?" Kirk said. The other seven who were getting ready pointedly didn't look their way.

"No sir." Yarrow said, overflowing with confidence.

"Your replacement ready to step into your shoes at a moment's notice?" If he said no, Kirk was ready to order him with the second wave.

Ensign Glissen looked up from polishing the emitter on her phaser rifle.

"Yes, sir," Yarrow said.

The way he said it, Kirk believed he was lying, but he suspected it was the kind of lie Yarrow told himself, that only he could be qualified. It was a small mission. Kirk decided to let him do as he wished. He'd listen in on the comm and make adjustments later.

"Don't bring back a single piece of enemy equipment. That's an order."

"Sir?"

"That's a firm order, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir. They'll have stripped it of everything anyway before ditching it."

Kirk sat on the bridge with an ear piece. Yarrow's voice was accompanied by the warm rushing noise of his breathing. He narrated as he moved through the vessel. 

"I found the life signs. They appear to be injured crew who are holed up in the engine room. They may be trying to rig a self-destruct. So much equipment's been stripped in a hurry, it's hard to tell one way or the other."

Kirk heard him yelling to the colonists in colorful language more befitting an Orion slave driver than a Starfleet officer. On the other hand, it probably communicated Yarrow's impatience and intentions most effectively. Yarrow had finished a full three years at the academy. Kirk's theory about crew excellence was growing muddled.

"Send three security for support," Yarrow said. "No more. It's crowded over here."

The transporter engaged. Minutes later came the sounds of a firefight. 

"They're both down. Grabbing them and going."

Kirk met them in the transporter room after ordering the ship back a safe distance as soon as transport was complete. He made the security team wait on the platform while the transporter tech scanned for devices. There were communicators on the prisoners which were immediately dropped in a shielded box and a security crewman named Greige had a small unidentified collapsable unit in his belt pocket that he swore he hadn't picked up.

Kirk nodded with a dubious expression and gestured for them to take the prisoners away.

The comm whistled. 

"We're being hailed, Commander. Commander Ashe requests that you connect in private."

In his quarters, Kirk brought up his monitor. For once he wasn't embarrassed by his quarters, since the other two commanders were in identical cabins.

Yabe said, "Does anyone have any idea what is going on at 'Fleet?"

Kirk put his steepled fingers to his lips during the ensuing silence, trying to let Ashe take the lead. Ashe seemed to be looking through something in front of him.

"I have a theory," Kirk said. "There are colonist sympathizers high up in Starfleet Command that for some reason cannot be rooted out. We were given vague orders to rendezvous, assuming we'd work out what best to do among the three of us."

Yabe said, "I'm pleased to be so trusted. But, that implies that the colonists have been planning this forever to get their people that high up."

"I don't like that theory, because it scares the pants off me," Commander Ashe said. "But Kirk's paranoia was almost not paranoid enough this time. But, if we assume we're being green lighted to make our own decisions, I think we should remain in a flotilla."

"I agree," Kirk said.

"We're in," Yabe said. 

Commander Ashe said, "They clearly expected an easy target. And we weren't it. I wish it didn't all point to serious issues at command but it does."

"Yabe, you were the intended target," Kirk said. "Someone issued another set of orders to add our two ships and a rendezvous ahead of time, ordered us not to acknowledge rather than let the traitor know they'd been foiled before the trap sprang."

"Too bad we didn't make better use of it. They know now," Ashe said.

"They will soon," Kirk agreed.

Kirk thought he should tour the ship, but he really needed time to think. He reviewed the Ranger's last month's worth of communications, looking for any kind of strange patterns. 

The door chimed. Riley stepped in when called to.

"May I speak with you, sir."

Kirk let his voice sound affectionate as he said, "Yes, of course."

"The crew are feeling a little uncertain, sir. Orders aren't supposed to be so confused. Ships are not supposed to be sent by Starfleet into an enemy trap."

"I'm sure the crew are out of sorts. I'm not avoiding them. I'm trying to figure out what's going on and what to say to them. All I have are guesses. None of which are going to make them feel any better."

Kirk looked at his first. Riley wore his emotions plainly on his face. His eyes were wide and his brows permanently raised. He looked stunned, bordering on scared. That was not going to help the crew.

"Sit down, Riley."

Riley pulled a jumpseat out of the wall and sat bent over with his hands clasped between his knees.

Kirk said, "I'm going to tell you what I know and what I'm guessing, which I do not want you to pass on to anyone. Understand? I need an ear to talk this through and you need find some certainty to hold to. So here goes."

Kirk leaned forward, adopting a posture like Riley's. "I think the virus forced the colonists' hand. I don't think they-"

"Virus?"

"Oh. Right. There is a computer virus hobbling the colonists right now. The colonists and the independent carriers supplying them. Take a look at the feeds. Lots of disabled ships."

"I noticed that. A virus?"

"Yes. It also hobbles the bots. It's a lovely thing."

Riley waited intently for more.

Kirk breathed in. "So, the colonists have some long-term plan they are patiently executing. They use their insiders to carefully pick away at Starfleet, hoping for a negotiated treaty when the Federation tires of the war. I can't imagine they hoped to win outright, so we'll go with favorable treaty terms as our assumption. They start to capture our ships, build up a better fleet, probably to defend their new treaty-based territory. But this virus hits. Suddenly, their ships are only half functional and their supplies are cut off. So they are no longer careful about using their carefully placed senior Starfleet people. They have to win and win quickly."

Riley's brows pulled together in worry.

Kirk exhaled. "The upside is it should be over fast. The insiders can't avoid giving themselves away. Inside Starfleet Command there is a chess game going on. A few pieces need to be taken off the board, and I expect they will be soon enough." 

But if they are smart, Kirk thought, they will have thought of this ahead of time and have false flag evidence ready to incriminate the wrong people, sewing a lot of internal strife. Or they somehow force the war with Vulcan to commence as an additional distraction. Or both.

"Riley, look at me."

Riley reluctantly looked up.

"That dossier of mine left a lot off. It left off that I was a lieutenant commander once before I was demoted back to lieutenant. When I wasn't getting demoted, I was getting demerits. You know what for?"

Riley shook his head faintly.

"Disobeying my superiors. Or obeying but arguing a lot. I will not lead this ship into anything I don't judge worthy of the risk. I'm not afraid of being demoted, or even court martialed. Trust that this ship is my top priority."

Kirk judged the effects of this. Riley wasn't doing much better hearing it.

Kirk said, "I got my bars back in that half hour before I was given this command. I now realize I was given this command specifically because I have a tendency to question orders." 

Or, I was set up to fail. But voicing that wouldn't help his first.

Kirk took Riley by the upper arms and turned him toward himself. "You rely on me, not Starfleet Command." He shook him lightly. "You trust me, right?"

Riley pushed his shoulders back. "Yes, sir."

"That is all I want you to think about. That's an order."

"Yes, sir. I don't think I'm helping the crew."

"You are a link in a chain between me and the crew. That's it. I don't want you to think about anything else." Kirk pointed at himself. "You don't like something, come talk to me. I'm more than happy to explain myself and admit I'm wrong and make changes. Honestly I am. Your confidence in me is everything. Nothing else matters."

Kirk bent to get back into Riley's lowered gaze. "All right?"

Riley stood up, closed his eyes a long moment. "All right, sir. I'll try not to continue to fall short."

"You aren't. You're being human. And a word of advice. Don't move away from things that are troublesome to cope with. Move toward something else. For example: we're in a convoy right now. We're in a pretty good position. Move toward that."

"We should be coordinating supplies between ships, set up a personal items swap."

"There you go. Arrange that." Kirk stood, patted Riley on the arm. "And ask Chief Long to send over a summary of the system changes I ordered her to conduct. Wasp and Spitfire should do the same. And I'll go talk to the crew."

Kirk started in engineering. He found Chief Long and most of her crew around the main control board divvying up jobs for the shift. Mouse stood beside the board, arms crossed, watching the lights working from the backside of the panel as if mesmerized.

"Commander Kirk," Long said, backing up a step to let him into the group.

Kirk said, "Just a quick visit to make sure everyone is doing all right."

"The main surge panel is throwing warnings. The artificial gravity inducer is running hot. We're about to work on both now. The Wasp blew their forward shield power conduit, I hear."

"Yes, they did. It wasn't the ship I was referring to. "

Long tilted her long neck. "You are referring to the somewhat chaotic orders Starfleet sent out."

"Yes. I wanted to let you know we are going to remain in a convoy with Wasp and Spitfire even after Wasp is repaired. Our mission remains the same."

"Which is?"

"Do the best we can to end the war. And not start another."

Kirk went to each department and had similar conversations with each head and as much staff as were on hand. He felt this was better than another shipwide announcement. The off-duty personnel would hear it from their colleagues and acceptance of the situation would take hold. In person, few seemed especially concerned, at least not to his face.

On the way back from security, Greige caught up with Kirk.

"Captain, sir."

Kirk waited.

"Sir, I really didn't pick up that little electronic unit. I don't even know what it was. I don't know how to convince you I didn't."

"I know you didn't. I'm well aware of who has trouble with authority and who doesn't. Don't worry about it."

"Okay, sir." He seemed stunned into relief. He swallowed. "What you said back there in security. What's going wrong at Starfleet Command?"

"I don't know what's going on. I'd tell the crew if I knew, but I'm not going to guess. There's too little real information already. Trust that I won't put this ship at undue risk unless there's a clear reason we can see for ourselves."

\-------- 8888 --------

Gall stepped into the lift with Kirk as he headed off shift at the start of second split shift, the usual time lack of sleep began to catch up with him. Eight on eight off, four on four off was working better for the bridge crew, including himself, as it always blocked out four hours of solid sleep out of twenty four for him before first shift.

"Another stray message, sir."

Kirk pulled the lift handle and they came to a halt.

Gall said, "Clever one this time, but I'm not sure how old it is as a result. The message was put into a relay with a signed date field, making the date a negative number that would never get purged until it found its destination since the expiration calculation would always come up invalid. Anyway, the message is short, only five words long."

Kirk waited.

"'Son has joined the outliers.'"

She was watching closely for his reaction but Kirk still couldn't hold back. He stared.

"You're certain of the message? Of course you are." Kirk took a deep breath and restarted the lift by hitting the handle hard.

"You understand it, sir? What's an outlier?"

"An outlier is someone who cannot follow the rules."

"I see." She stood straighter. "I don't think I can successfully reply to the message."

The lift opened on the officer's deck.

"I have nothing to say to it anyway."

Kirk lay on his bunk, hands clasped over his chest. He was more awake now than he'd been all duty shift. He felt broadsided. He knew Spock, or thought he knew Spock. But he'd been with him less than two weeks. 

Had Spock joined the Militants to release a version of the system virus on them? Spock would have known it wouldn't work as effectively, likely wouldn't work at all. 

Spock's lack of emotion in the heat of battle now seemed malevolent. 

Kirk shook his head and sat up, leaned far forward. Every muscle from the back of his knees to his neck screamed about the stretch.

Kirk pulled on a t-shirt he'd found in the exchange bin and went down to the cargo deck where three treadmills had been put into service now that supplies had shrunk enough to give them room. He was alone and glad for it.

The pounding of his feet blotted out his thoughts for a while. Every time thought of any kind returned, he pushed harder, until his under-exercised chest burned and his sides ached. 

He rode to the end of the tread, hopping off to clumsily land on the floor. The machine cut out immediately. He bent over, holding the side rail, sides in pain like they were tearing open.

That was better. Although he still didn't sleep.

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk left the bridge at the end of the first full shift with the reassuring image of their convoy on the viewscreen.

Chapel handed him a packet of sleeping pills far more willingly than he was comfortable with. Something else he should address, but right now he needed to sleep, and the last thing he was going to mention to his CMO was that the pill policy seemed lax.

He woke to the chime of his alarm. He used the sonics while still swimming in the drug's effects. He turned the water on briefly, cold, for the count of ten. Shivering violently, he dried off his chill-burned skin.

The comm whistled. "Commander, Starfleet has requested a full update on our status."

"Is the request signed?"

"Yes, sir. Commodore Stone."

"Hail the Wasp and Spitfire, request a private communication and pipe it to my monitor here."

"At least someone is taking charge," Commander Ashe said.

"He's overstepping his bounds," Yabe said.

"Opinion, Kirk?" Ashe said. 

Kirk was trying to find reasons to trust the Commander overseeing the Klingon Defense Sector and wondering if he could trust his own judgement about anyone.

"Our location isn't exactly sensitive information, in and of itself," Kirk said. "I say we comply with the request. Including the last action we were involved in."

"And if we get orders from Stone?" Yabe asked.

"He isn't in the direct chain above us," Ashe said, "But I'd be inclined to follow his orders."

Kirk said, "Since he's on Starbase 11, he might be out of the fray at SF Command, whatever the fray is. If he doesn't send us orders, we should follow the rebel colony ships. We're not fast enough to catch them, unless we get lucky. But we might get lucky."

"I would like to do that," Ashe said.

"I'll put my scanner on it, see what we can pick up for a trail," Yabe said.

"If everyone backs off, we can have some target practice on what's left of this rebel ship," Ashe said.

Kirk went to the bridge, ordered Helm back off to half a million klicks from the enemy ship. 

Gunner sounded excited. "Can we fire, sir?"

"Sorry, Toyvan, I didn't draw the long straw."

"Dratted." Then a pause. "Sir."

It took the Wasp three shots to hit the warp core. The viewscreen darkened suddenly with the shuttering of the forward sensors as it lit up.

Toyvan said, "They really need the practice."

The rest of shift was uneventful. They received no orders from Starbase 11 and put in a course to follow an ion trail that hours later became three. They were hours behind the enemy, but at least they had a goal.

In his too quiet quarters for the second split shift, Kirk avoided the remaining sleeping pills in the packet and watched the data feeds. A Vulcan ship had tangled with a Militant ship. Both had been damaged and the Militant ship captured. Unlike most reports involving Vulcans this one had some followup articles. The Vulcan pilot had made himself available to answer questions about the altercation. The quotes were stiff answers to emotional questions. The Vulcan ship had encountered the Militant vessel unawares while traveling to the asteroid mines of Regulus, but once they identified the vessel, engaged it with the vessel's cutting tools.

It was a perfect setup. A mining ship was armed, but not in a conventional, paranoia inducing way that might amplify the sense of Vulcans generally becoming military minded.

Deciding he didn't care about Federation database logging, Kirk pulled up more information about the Vulcan mentioned in the article. He was a grandson of T'Piov, who was a cousin by marriage to Spock's grandmother, according to the sparsely filled-in family tree the computer generated after half an hour of data collection. Sarek had a hand in this, Kirk was certain. Was he trying to locate Spock by sending the large extended family out after the Militant ships they could find? Or had he taken Kirk's advice and was no longer sitting back and letting the Militants define Vulcan for them?

For his own sanity, Kirk needed to decide if he'd misjudged Spock or if Spock really thought he could accomplish something positive by joining the Militants. To accept the second case, Kirk would have to significantly lower his estimation of Spock's basic intelligence. He almost preferred to think Spock had a side he hadn't seen, a side that was as unhappy with Vulcan society as most Militants likely were. Unhappy enough to be pulled in by a world of acceptance he likely never fully experienced on Vulcan. 

Spock was a hybrid being, perhaps pulled in too many directions by his conflicting needs, harboring hidden facets of personality kept in check by his almighty Vulcan training, a social being who might have finally found a real home among shipmates, just as Kirk had done, only shipmates with a terrible mission statement.

The Spock he knew, the one who showed such concern for him on Wolfram, could never act in violence again a human without just cause, or even act in support of someone acting in violence against a human. That eliminated both possibilities and left Kirk facing the assumption that he'd simply misjudged Spock at the core. Maybe his instincts just didn't apply to Vulcans.

None Kirk's theories matched Kirk's memory of him. At all.

At least Kirk was no longer enraptured by those memories. When he spent time in them, it was with the clinical eye of a commander. And no matter the underlying cause, Spock's taking action to join up was likely precipitated by Kirk's cheerleading. 

"Spock," Kirk said aloud into the still air of his cabin. 

Speaking his name aloud made his throat thick. 

"Damn you and whatever you are doing."


	17. Questionable Loyalty

Kirk forced himself onto a regular schedule. Away from the bridge most of second full shift, he watched the feeds or ran on the treadmill. The crew relaxed, probably too much. He noticed more nods and smiles as he went about the ship, as if his regular schedule and sober, focused demeanor were a source of reassurance. 

Rand began straightening his cabin again. She'd given up when his schedule was chaotic. The scent she left behind helped him too, as if he wasn't totally alone. When they encountered each other, Kirk gave her a formal nod and asked about her day. She responded with something pat and polite and they separated again. 

They followed the ion trails for four days. Until they vanished suddenly. Kirk was in the mess when this happened, eating a snack and playing two dimensional chess with Jones from engineering who had been injured repairing a cracked pressure bottle on the artificial gravity system. Kirk wanted to cheer her up, but beating her in four moves wasn't doing it. 

"Shields up, go to yellow alert," Kirk said into the nearest comm.

On the bridge, Comm had the other commanders on the viewscreen already.

Yabe said, "The only thing ahead of us on this course is a Supergiant with a history of radiation bursts that could toast us from here if we wait around long enough. All right, I exaggerate a little."

"You have your shields up, Ranger?" Ashe said.

"We were led here by the enemy. That's why I raised them."

"The man has a point," Yabe said, signaling for her ship to do the same.

Ashe said, "They had to come this way to leave the ion trails. Garden path or not. It was still a path. Where'd they go next?"

Kirk turned to his scanner station. "Anything on long range scan?"

"Checking, sir. The radiation level is pretty high near that star. Long range scan shows a low signal to noise ratio."

To the viewscreen, Kirk said, "I've been mapping assets in the area from a variety of databases. I think we can eliminate large areas of nearby space where the colonist rebels would find it productive to go. Barring something on scans, I suggest we plot in a patrol route covering those assets. Put a little more space between the three of us for better coverage."

"Take up a triangle formation," Ashe said. "I can abide with that. Spitfire?"

"Acknowledged."

\-------- 8888 --------

Riley came to Kirk's quarters. He looked better rested than he had the entire mission. Kirk gave him a warm smile that made Riley drop his gaze to the deck, and roll one foot over to his ankle.

Riley said, "Thought I'd report to you on the state of the crew."

"Getting lazy, is my assessment," Kirk said. "The battle tightened things up, but days and days of nothing is ruining it."

Riley's head came up. "I was thinking they were far less stressed."

"Those tend to go together."

Riley said, "The crew is pretty pleased with you, sir."

"I'm flattered to hear that."

"I've been getting questions about leave, though, sir."

"We're a bit short on shore leave planets in this part of the galaxy. Unless they want to head over to the cargo corridor near Antares and catch an untreatable disease or three."

Riley's eyebrows went up and stayed up.

"That was mostly a joke. I'll see what the Wasp and Spitfire have to say. My instinct says we need to stay on patrol a little longer. Even though we don't know what we're doing out here, and don't know why we were assigned to this area in the first place, there is too much uncertainty to assume we don't have a purpose."

"We did encounter four rebel colony ships, Commander."

"I don't know why they were here either. This isn't a very interesting area of space. No one should be here. That's the kind of thing that makes me throw all my assumptions away and just act as carefully as possible, pretend I'm crawling around blind and have to expect anything. Could be I fall into a hole, could be I hit a wall, could be I get bit by a snake."

"I see, Commander." Clearly he didn't.

"Plan a split recreation shift. See what you can scrounge up in the way of treats. Run a tournament of some kind. Talk to Rand, she might have ideas."

\-------- 8888 --------

The three ships exchanged a handful of personnel for a recreation break. Kirk didn't want to be in the way, so he avoided the mess area while festivities were in progress.

He was on the bridge, speaking with Scanner about the strange engine signature on the colonist ships and whether it related to the strange pods the ships had, when a message came through that the Militants had attacked Starbase 3, the most significant Starfleet property between Vulcan and earth, well inside Federation space.

Comm said, "There are scans of the damaged station on the feeds, sir."

The station's silvery grey skin rotated around until a rusty black streaked conical pod came into view, starlight showing through in places. The turbolift doors opened and Riley and a few other officers came onto the bridge.

"Feed says five fatalities, over a hundred injured."

Fairfeather turned in her seat. "Why are we stationed out here, sir, instead of closer in where we might actually be able to protect someone? There aren't enough ships left to defend the core. Did Starfleet want this to happen?"

"I really doubt Starfleet wanted this to happen," Kirk said. "Comm, did they catch or destroy any of the Militant ships?" Kirk felt a painful ambivalence as he asked this. 

"No, sir. They were too fast."

"Then Vulcan should be taking care of them," Toyvan said.

"They are starting to," Kirk said. "But they aren't soldiers and their ships aren't armed. Nor does the Federation really want them to be, at this point."

"They have their own defense now. Maybe they should just leave the Federation," Fairfeather said. "Leave us be." She turned her head. "Sir. Seems like that's what they want."

Riley came down beside Kirk and studied his face.

Kirk turned away from his scrutiny. "That's what the Militants want. They want Federation influence out of Vulcan."

"Maybe that would be for the best." Toyvan said. "They don't really fit in."

Kirk stepped toward the gunner station. "One of the founding members of the Federation doesn't fit in? There are a lot of non human species in the Federation, you realize."

"Non human isn't the same as heartless," Toyvan said. He said this like he'd been holding it in until the idea had festered. "I'd trust a rebel colonist before I'd trust a Vulcan. The Andorians, the Bolians, the Tellarites, the Axanar, all of them manage to have emotions. Even the Therbians of all creatures, can act human. What's wrong with the Vulcans? I don't see any reason why we should tolerate it."

"We can't even tell what they are thinking," Fairfeather said. But she'd lowered her head as if not wanting to seem too in support of Toyvan.

Kirk examined his own pain, trying to make it irrelevant to the conversation. Each member of the bridge crew turned to him, one at a time, until they all waited. The status noises of the consoles suddenly seemed louder.

Kirk took the center seat, sat back. "Mr. Toyvan, you believe the rebel colonists, with all the destruction we've faced, are more human than the average Vulcan?"

Toyvan made some small adjustments on his board with forceful movements. He had a hulking posture. "Yes, sir, I do."

"Have you faced a bot, Mr. Toyvan?"

"No sir. But a bot is better than some alien sneaking up and snapping your neck."

"I would much rather take the second one," Kirk said. "First of all, at least my enemy respected me enough to deal with me personally rather than hiding away and letting a machine do the dirty work. Secondly, if my enemy gets that close, I have a chance of sticking a knife in them in return. I could destroy a hundred bots and I still haven't touched the actual enemy trying to kill me. No." Kirk shook his head. "There is no question the personal touch is more hospitable if we are talking about killing."

Toyvan didn't look up. He made more pointless small adjustments. Kirk swiveled to survey the bridge. Riley stared at his feet.

Kirk said, "I don't like what I am seeing here. You are giving the colonists the benefit of the doubt, despite the horrors they've brought on the Federation and pinned all your anger on one race, most of whom can't even tell a white lie without having an existential crisis." 

Kirk pushed out of his chair and paced around the bridge. "Do you realize that you aren't judging actual actions, but classifying good and evil based on your biases?"

"You saw the pictures of the station, sir," Toyvan said. 

The strain in his voice made Kirk want to remove him from duty, but that would get muddled up with the debate they were having and Kirk wasn't going to make any matryrs.

"I saw it. It was an unjustified attack for which there is no excuse. But it is a military target, unlike the peaceful colonies wiped out by the rebels simply because they wouldn't join up with them and represented a risk as a result. Why do you give them a pass? Why doesn't the actions of those handful of humans damn all of earth in your eyes, Mr. Toyvan?"

Toyvan sat with his jaw tight which made his features more chiseled.

Kirk said, "That's what you are doing with the Vulcans, you realize."

Kirk decided he wasn't speaking only to Toyvan. He stepped around the bridge and stopped beside his chair again. 

"How about we classify each enemy unit based on what they have actually done, without previous bias, and leave larger groups out of it? For one thing it makes our job a lot easier, since it cuts down considerably on the total number of enemies we need to dispense with."

At the end of shift, Riley followed Kirk to his quarters. He seemed vaguely sheepish.

Kirk worried he'd over-reacted on the bridge, but didn't feel regretful, no matter how fragile he knew a natural command of others could be. He waved for Riley to step inside.

"Could have handled that better," Kirk said. His worry about Spock was at least partly to blame. 

"I don't think the crew expected a homily."

"We're not out here to make things worse," Kirk snapped. Exhaled. "But you aren't the problem, Mr. Riley."

Riley rocked back on his heels. "I do somewhat agree with Mr. Toyvan on some points. Sir."

"And I wouldn't even have guessed that, so you are doing a fine job at first. You are supposed to represent me, and apparently that's exactly what you're doing."

Riley looked up as if to check Kirk wasn't sarcastic. Riley was too emotionally frail for this job, but Kirk would protect even his misguided feelings in exchange for his eager energy.

Kirk put a hand on Riley's shoulder and squeezed it. "If we can't find common ground among this crew, how will we ever find it within the Federation?"

"You really are willing to give the Vulcans that much of a benefit of a doubt?"

"Yes."

"More so than the colonists?"

"Explicitly more so. I don't understand why the colonists are rebellious but the Vulcans are treacherous. Even those two words are telling. The vast majority of them are incapable of violence. We aren't reacting anywhere near proportional to the threats we face. We're acting tribally. That makes us our own worst enemy."

"But what if we fail to act when we should? Don't we have a duty to fulfill?"

Kirk lost his aggressive, argumentative tone. "I'd rather have peace than be right."

Riley swallowed. "Lucky you've seen a lot of action and can get away with saying that."

"I only have license to believe that because I've already fought too much? I'm not comfortable with notion."

Riley looked at the chrono, dropped his gaze. "The next split rec shift is due to start. I'll see to the next exchanges of crew, then?"

"Yes, go ahead."

Riley turned to the door and hesitated. "I mean, I understand what you are saying, sir. But it just doesn't feel right."

"Maybe we need fewer feelings in that case."

Riley gave him an odd look.

Kirk said, "Do you think the Vulcan Militants are more or less emotional than the average Vulcan?"

"I don't know, sir."

"I'm guessing more." His voice became wistful. "But maybe I'm wrong."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk regularly watched the feeds, hoping to see word of another Vulcan ship taking action against the Vulcan Militants. There hadn't been any additional incidents since the first one. His chest felt heavier each time he was disappointed. He'd apparently pinned too much hope on it becoming more common. It would reduce calls for Starfleet to take action against Vulcan. It might be the only hope.

He had the public and Starfleet feeds interleaved. This produced strange juxtapositions of headlines. The Enterprise had battled two ships in the neutral zone shared with the Klingon Empire. Incursions from the Klingons had been a regular feature of the war with the rebel colonists, but at least the Klingons hadn't seen fit to support the colonists. The public feed extolled the conduct of the Enterprise and the outcome of the battle, the Starfleet entry read like a clerical footnote.

The public feeds kept the damaged Starbase 3 in public view for many days. Kirk felt guilty for his relief that none of the attacking ships were destroyed. He also felt relief that Vulcan had finished a planetary defense shield, despite the insinuations in some of the feeds that the timing was just a little too convenient.


	18. Sabotage

Kirk found the feeds hard to read, but as days stretched to weeks, he spent more time watching them. The Federation Council voted for severe direct sanctions against Vulcan, at the last minute cutting the wording about backing the sanctions with military action. Kirk exhaled abruptly when he first read that. But what frustrated him the most was how ineffectual Vulcan was at defending themselves politically. Sarek was right. They saw no logical reason to repeat themselves, so they were drowned out of the public conversation.

The feeds that tried to seem politically equitable had moved on to cost estimates and construction plans to replace the damaged pods on Starbase 3 and to interviews with everyone who had been there during the attack. The stories of explosions and alarms, of bulkheads slamming closed against the rush of escaping air. Helping the wounded. Panic. All of it resonated with Kirk's own memories without specifically matching them. 

But it was a military target and it shouldn't have been that easy to hit, unwarranted attack or not. Kirk felt he was being pragmatic reminding himself of that, but worried his will was faltering.

The crew began asking if they had new orders yet, and when they would likely be issued some.

Kirk explained that they were still on patrol, were still hunting the three remaining rebel colonist ships with strange engines. This answer always disappointed. Kirk sympathized with their disappointment. He too would rather fight than sit waiting, but he wanted the right fight, knew he'd rebel against the wrong fight, and feared he'd rebel alone, uselessly.

Even two hours on the treadmill didn't leave him calm anymore. He prowled the ship. He talked to his crew with a disciplined distance. He never risking directly asking where their loyalties rested, with him, or with their desire for revenge. He was honestly afraid to hear the answer or to risk solidifying their thinking. All he could do was be the leader he himself would follow, no matter the personal cost.

He was on the treadmill when Gall came up to him, tape in hand, a bright red one like she used for emergency communications.

Kirk hit the stop button and rode the tread until it halted. He stood dripping onto the rubberized deck and accepted the tape.

"You need to look at that right away, sir."

Kirk pressed the towel to his face as he went to his cabin. 

It wasn't orders. It was a message from Sarek. A long one.

Kirk read it a second time while he toweled sweat out of his hair. 

"Gall, arrange a private three way conference with Ashe and Yabe."

"Already arranged, sir."

"You are exemplary, but hold off five minutes before connecting in that case."

She sounded amused. "Yes, sir."

Kirk's strategic mind cast ahead to everything they'd need to do, through the likely delay of the messages and projecting ahead to likely timing of executing his own orders. He let his thoughts burrow into that activity. He liked that activity.

"Kirk?" Ashe said when the connection went through.

Kirk said, "I know where the Militants are, or their flagship and three others, at least. Likely the ones that have been running attacks in Federation space."

"How do you know this?"

"I have inside information. But you are going to doubt the veracity of that information because it leads us into inherent danger just to investigate it. And we are going to need some bigger support. If the three of us try this, we will get out butts kicked."

"I work on the accounts principle, Kirk. Your account is pretty high with me. Spend a bit of it and tell me what you think you know."

"The Vulcan Militants are using Y-9032b as a base. Look that system up and we'll go from there."

Yabe read off her padd. "One of several Class B Supergiants in this area of space. Three large gas planets in orbit, large enough to cause the star to oscillate. Fifteen dwarf planets. Subject to random, dangerous radiation bursts."

Kirk said, "If they are successfully using it as a base, the bursts can't be that random. Do we have any archival astronomy data on the system to develop some models?"

Ashe turned aside from the screen and told his Scanner to locate the data. He rubbed his chin. "So you think they are sheltering there and we've never noticed because it would be suicidal to use it as a base."

"It's plausible."

"How much do you trust your information?"

"I trust it implicitly. There is more as well. On Stardate 2510.9 the enemy flagship's engines will be at least partially sabotaged."

"I want to hear the story of how you know this," Yabe said with keen interest.

"It's a long story that overturns several official reports," Kirk said. "Even if I tell you the entire story, you'll still have to trust me, and I'll have betrayed people I don't intend to betray."

Ashe made a disbelieving face. He asked his scanner about progress on the data.

Kirk asked his own comm what ships were within three days warp of Y-9032b.

Comm replied that the Tico was only two days warp away.

Kirk said, "She's Asia class. She can pack a punch."

Ashe said, "You act like we can just issue orders to have her meet us rather than going through channels and waiting for orders."

Kirk said, "I think that's the only way to do it given how command is behaving. And you are assuming Tico has any more orders than we do, Commander. Either of you personally know Tico's captain?"

"Conrad Seyburn. I met him once, years ago," Ashe said. "My scanner says there is a pattern to Y-9032b's bursts, but the variability is high. He does not recommend approach."

"I wouldn't normally either. The Vulcan Militant ships have the advantage of speed, which we don't. We have to be smarter."

Ashe crossed his arms. "I'd like to see you apply smarts to combating a Class B Supergiant, Kirk."

"I'll think of something. Can you contact Tico? Feel out Seyburn. Without him, we can't do this." Kirk's gut twisted. Spock was trusting that his sabotage and leaked information would result in action on Starfleet's part. He may be betting his life on it.

"I'll try another avenue as well," Kirk said, and signed out.

Kirk asked Gall to establish a secure channel to Commodore Stone. There would be a lot of lag, but Kirk didn't know who else to turn to. He didn't trust Pritchard's office, the source of the bad orders and Coyran was too close to him, personally. And Commodore Mendez who oversaw the more local Romulan Defense Sector was a complete unknown.

Stone's image came up on the screen. He had dark, full features that Kirk suspected could go from kindly to stern in an instant. His tightly curly hair was cropped close, but not in a military style. Kirk knew nothing about him except that he had stepped in and actually communicated once before.

"Commander Kirk. This is unexpected."

Kirk was overwhelmed with a desire to unburden himself, about how they were left hanging out here without information, given orders intended to entrap them. But he did not have time and they had reported as much to Stone a month ago. Kirk needed to get to the point and compact his information down because of the many minutes of lag between messages.

"I need your help, sir. We, by that I mean the Ranger, Wasp, and Spitfire, are assigning ourselves a mission based on information we've gathered, but we need a larger ship to accompany us. We have very good reason to believe the Vulcan Militants are using Y-9032b as a base of operations. We also have very good reason to believe that we need to hit them quickly, that we are going to miss a very good opportunity if we don't. The Tico is nearby, but we don't have the authority to reassign her. Obviously."

More than the ten minutes needed for the lag ticked by. Kirk flipped through star maps of the area, had the computer draw spheres for various radiation levels during average and high bursts from the star. 

He pushed the comm stud and asked for his first shift Nav officer.

"Commander?" came a sleep drained voice.

"I have a master's level task for you, Moore. Plot a course into Y-9032b during a radiation burst, following a spiral path of the shadow of one of the larger planets orbiting the star." Kirk waited a few moments. "Can you do that?"

Moore sniffled. Kirk imagined him rubbing his eyes to better wake up. "That is either madness or brilliance, sir."

"Go out too far on one or the other and they are the same. Get back to me when you can. I expect you're awake now. Kirk out."

Another ten minutes passed. The secure connection remained active. Kirk saw it as a good sign, although maybe Stone was talking to command and all hell was about to break officially loose. He tried not to think about Spock, which meant that Spock overwhelmed his concern until the screen updated again.

Stone's communication restarted with a flutter. He appeared stern, nostrils flared. "This is all off the record, Kirk. If you can work out a way of approaching Y-9032b safely, then by all means investigate. I am sending you Tico. I repeat, none of this is official. We have our hands full here or I'd have gone to earth myself to see what was going on. I'm being honest with you, because you are the ones with everything on the line out there. I'm frankly alarmed by what happened with the Spitfire and other rumors I'm hearing. When I talk to my personal friends back at command, everything seems fine. Just fine. Maybe too fine. I don't know what to make of it. If you have any idea what's happening up the chain, contact me, please. I expect after sending you Tico, that I'll have earned your trust. And now this communication which never officially started, will now unofficially end."

Kirk sat for a half minute, breathing heavily.

In this action, he'd have the support of his crew, despite the risks. And if they could seriously damage the Militants, the pressure for action against Vulcan would be greatly reduced. That was worth it. That was worth a lot.

His comm whistled. "I have a preliminary course, sir. But I'd like to run it by another navigator. The star oscillates like a binary, makes the shadows trickier unless we wait for a beneficial positioning of its three large planets. But that could be weeks or months."

Kirk said, "I'll have comm send it on for review to Spitfire and Wasp. And Tico."

"You devil," Ashe said, when his connection went through. "You end-runned around me."

"I wanted to be certain. We're in an all or nothing game here."

"Seyburn wants to talk to you. I told him Stone was your doing and now he thinks you're in charge of this mission."

"I'm happy to hand this mission to Seyburn as long as it happens."

Seyburn came on, his spacious quarters spread out behind him in darkness. He sported a pencil thin, non regulation mustache. Kirk thought that the best sign he had seen in days. He was middle aged, with mostly grey hair that looked oddly off with his dark eyes and mustache.

"I'm getting orders from the head of the Klingon Defense Sector and strong suggestion not to share them with command, that the orders don't really exist. Commander Ashe tells me I should blame you for that."

"Yes." Kirk summarized everything for him.

"But you don't want to share where this leak is from."

"It comes from Vulcan, obviously. A personal friend."

"That you have personal friends on Vulcan, a planet of inhabitants that never profess to friendship, or so I hear, is a bit worrying too."

"I don't have anything to convince you the information is genuine. How about we flip the whole idea around. This location makes sense. They have fast ships. They are good at math. They can hide there and no one will look for them there. They can be in and out of the Federation core in slightly more than a day, no matter which course they appear to initially set, and no one can locate them between raids." 

"I'm giving you a bit of a ribbing, Kirk. My science officer thinks she sees at least three ships in the planetary dark side of the third planet, last transit of that planet in front of Y-9032b."

Kirk exhaled. 

Seyburn said, "We are heading in your direction at maximum warp, but we need a more precise rendezvous point within a few hours. Your comm sent us a course that you want our navigator to review for actually approaching this radioactive monster. I'm going to put our computers on it. We'll get back to you."

"Do you want command of this mission, Captain? It is rightly yours for the taking."

"No. I'm a careful commander. This freewheeling stuff isn't my suit. Plus, you can take the fall when it goes wrong. You and Stone. We're going on radio silence with command for the duration. They've certainly ordered us to do so at random times the last few months, so I feel justified in adding another random time of my own."

"That doesn't sound particularly careful, Captain Seyburn."

"No, Kirk, it's very careful."

"I'm going to have to adjust to your definition of careful, sir."

"Do so, quickly. Seyburn out."

Kirk sat back. He'd likely just burned all the good will from the Battle of Wolfram. Well, he hadn't deserved it in the first place, so it wasn't much of a loss.

Kirk pulled up Sarek's message again, scrolled down to the close.

_Please protect him if at all possible._

An all out battle, four ships on four. What were the chances he could pluck Spock out of there? Bad. Especially since his first responsibility was to his own ship and crew. But Spock had plucked him out of much much worse trouble. Maybe that was Spock's luck and it would hold.


	19. Battles

"All stations report green. Powered stationary orbit is utilizing fourteen percent of impulse." Helm said.

The four Starfleet vessels were sitting in the shadow of the fourteenth dwarf planet orbiting Y-9032b. They had flown in during a long interval between radiation bursts on an approach angle that kept the star between them and the enemy ships. 

Kirk leaned toward the viewscreen with his chin on his hand, mind playing through scenarios in decreasing orders of likelihood. The four of them had argued the possible strategies for hours but it all came down to what played out on the actual battlefield. Plans became useless quickly.

Riley stood beside the center chair, arms interlocked behind his back. Kirk almost told him to stop it.

"Communications are on lowest power, Comm?"

"Yes, sir."

"Scanner, time to next burst?"

"Forty-one minutes, plus or minus twenty two minutes, sir."

Time ticked down. The Vulcan Militant ships and the planet that sheltered them were on a tactical display in the corner with large positional uncertainty bars around the ship icons. They had debated launching a probe to see around the star, but did not want to risk losing the element of surprise even to get much needed data.

"Comm. Put me through to the flotilla, audio only."

Kirk said, "The background radiation is high enough that we might lose communications even on full power. As planned, let's try and knock out the weapons on the flagship and then disable the smaller ships from escaping. I suspect they will stay initially to protect the flagship, so we'll not lose the opportunity to capture more of them. As far as approach, I don't want to come in around P-3 on precise cardinal directions, let's mix it up. Spitfire adjust to 22 degrees azimuth relative to the third planet's rotation. Tico, adjust to a hundred and ten. Precision is their strong suit, let's not cater to it. And Tico I want you engaged three minutes ahead of the rest of us. Let them get focussed on you before we buzz in. Sensors will be noisy but visual should be clearer. Everyone take the closest target at all times to minimize friendly fire damage. And keep track of the radiation burst countdowns."

"P-1 is putting us into shadow, sir."

On the screen, the supergiant was being eclipsed at the edge by a disc half its size at this distance. The timing for the first part of the maneuver was coming together.

"Everyone ready for some danger?"

The bridge crew sat over their boards with zen like focus.

Kirk said, "Let's drop in closer."

They flew in a laddered diamond formation with Tico on point. The burst came ahead of schedule. Diffusion and lensing effects at the edge of the planet's shadow left them blind for many minutes. The radiation levels fell off and they settled into a distant, powered, stationary orbit behind the first planet. 

"Damage report," Kirk said.

"Nothing reported."

"Let's see how long we can keep it that way." Kirk said to Riley. "Why don't you take the secondary engineering station? In case we need more coordination on damage control."

Riley nodded. He didn't appear frightened, but he didn't appear eager either.

Kirk said, "With that last burst fed into the model, what's our next interval?"

There was a delay while Scanner worked. "Short, sir. Twenty three minutes, plus or minus seventeen minutes."

Kirk confirmed that the other ships had computed similar numbers.

"We'll wait for a long interval. Everyone relax just a little. Save yourselves for the actual battle."

Kirk watched the screen and chewed his thumb, a bad habit he'd shaken as a teen. Every minute that passed increased the likelihood of the sabotage being repaired, or worse yet, the source of it being discovered. 

Six hours dragged by before the model predicted a long enough interval to transit around the star and beyond the third planet.

"Tico, lead on," Kirk said. He let up on the comm button and spoke to his bridge crew. "I'm more than ready; I expect the rest of you are as well."

There were curt nods. Kirk liked his crew in this mode.

They were on 80% impulse following Tico and their sister ships that had not been retrofitted. This increased Kirk's stress. They were going to be two and a half minutes into the margin of error getting to the shadow of the planet harboring the Militants. But flying alone, they'd be well inside that margin.

Tico dove out of the formation to circle below the planet.

"Helm come around to mark 214 and cut the orbit tight and give us full impulse. Go to red alert."

Fairfeather executed those instructions. Her braided crown of shiny black hair reflected the alert lantern flashes.

"Gunner, you may fire when you have a target."

"Yes, sir." Toyvan's voice sounded dreamy he was so focused on his board.

They cleared the horizon. Tico was flying through the formation of Vulcan Militant ships executing a roll to get clearance. Weapons finally engaged and swept after her as she gained distance. 

"Three enemy ships and a spreading debris field, Sir. Tico's already destroyed one."

Kirk's heart grew hot and tight. "Bring us in as planned."

He hit the intership comm switch, "Remember, we want the ships intact. We need their speed to finish this job long-term."

Ranger's phasers erupted and scattered off the flagship's top hull.

Kirk said, "Note the weapon's portals when you aim, Gunner. I'm guessing they haven't learned to properly shield a phaser bank that's active."

The Militant flagship fired on the Tico again.

Ranger's subsequent shot at the phaser portal remained on target despite their own dodging maneuver. A flash of escaping air sparkled and dissipated from the blast point.

"Helm bring us around 180 and make a similar pass the other way."

A direct hit shook the Ranger. 

"Shields at 72%, sir."

Spitfire crossed their path, forcing them to veer, which caused a flash of enemy fire to miss. Kirk straightened in his chair from being dumped against the armrest.

"Stay with the flagship. Keep fire on the weapons portals right as they use them."

Wasp flew in close and made a successful hit. The flagship put on a burst of impulse and dodged away. 

Helm maneuvered to follow. Tico came roaring down from above, firing on the flagship's top shields.

Wasp exchanged fire with one of the smaller ships. The view of it was blown out by a burst of radiation. 

"Get us central to the shadow," Kirk said.

"We're blind, sir."

"Use the last useful data. Get the forward sensor filtering to just the visible spectrum."

The viewscreen shifted through violet and into a rainbow-throwing starscape and then it stabilized.

"Flying by visual only is not recommended, sir."

"We have to use what we've got. Scanner, everyone safe in the shadow?"

"Uncertain, sir."

A hit shook the ship again.

"Helm turn and give Gunner a shot at whoever that was."

The audio monitor crackled. "Enemy flagship's phasers are disabled. Unclear if they have other weapons."

Ranger chased the small enemy ship. Radiation caused a burst of electrical noise on one of the consoles.

"They are trying to lead us out of the shadow, sir."

"Gunner, try for that nacelle strut I see under the port nacelle. Then Helm, pull us away and keep us in planet shadow."

Phasers shot out, scattered well away from the ship's boxy, vaguely triangular hull.

"Shields are overlapped in that area, apparently, sir."

"Track them as they try to come back to safety. What's our next interval?"

"Short, sir. Could be in as little as six minutes."

Nav said, "Maybe we can keep them out. Let the star toast them."

It was the right tactic. Kirk filled his chest and held his shoulders back in that position. "At least make them pay a toll to get back to safety."

They mirrored the enemy ship's movements, firing whenever it tried to cross over, but the Ranger was bigger and heavier and the Militant ship slipped into the planet's shadow well before the next blast of radiation.

The radiation cleared from the sensors. The Militant flagship had warped away.

"We're giving chase," Kirk said into the intership channel.

Helm and Nav were already going into motion so he didn't make it an actual command. The flagship was still hobbled, barely making warp 2.5, so they caught up in minutes and paced her.

"Shall I fire, sir?" Gunner asked.

"Hold off. Let's get her away from the Supergiant where we can have her towed away if necessary. We want that ship."

"Scanner, let me know when we are in the safe zone for a moderately high burst without protection."

"Sir, we are drifting out of P-3's shadow," Nav said. When Kirk didn't respond, Nav said, "Shall we adjust course, sir?"

"What is our calculated interval?"

"We have seven minutes before a thirty seven minute uncertainty window."

"I'm going to assume the enemy's calculations are more accurate. Stay this course."

Helm wiped her hand on her pant leg before putting it back on the console.

Kirk said, "Don't worry, Fairfeather. That much radiation won't give you time to worry too much about what's happening."

They flew in the starboard rear quadrant of the Militant vessel. New battle scars show on the raised, half-disk rear hull. Like all Vulcan ships, this one was assembled with no concern for aesthetics. 

Kirk's gaze went over every corner of the ship. There was no reason for Spock to change ships. And no reason to assume he was onboard an unsabotaged ship. Kirk had to trust that he was here.

Kirk was sweating even though the bridge air was cool. "Gunner, Scanner, can we bring her to heel without permanently disabling her?"

"Working on that, sir."

"While you are working on that, get me an estimated crew size."

"Eleven, sir."

Kirk turned in his seat. "They are flying a 120 meter vessel with eleven crew?"

"Based on scans, I'm guessing the volume is mostly supplies, sir. It's a converted fast cargo cruiser."

The Militant ship veered farther out of P-3's shadow, which at this distance was defined by an arc on the tactical display.

"Stay on course, Helm. Don't mimic their movements."

Comm said, "Captain, Spitfire reports that Wasp is damaged. Tico is towing them into the planet's shadow while under fire."

"Do they want us to give up the chase?" Kirk asked because he had to ask. It would kill him to actually do so.

"No, Sir. Captain Seyburn says specifically to stay with the enemy."

Gunner said, "We can pull up into a frontal quadrant and lob a torpedo into their path, Captain."

Spock wanted to get off the ship unharmed. He might be trying to arrange that.

"Gunner, pick a target that will disable and stay with it. For example that outflow vent with the high heat signature. Helm bring us down below their bowline for a better angle. Gunner I want you to slag that vent so they overheat if they try to continue on course."

The phasers shot out, harmlessly bounced off.

Minutes passed. 

"How are we on safety range, Scanner?"

"Might survive a weak burst from here. You will, however, regret surviving it. Sir."

Kirk's lips crooked into a smile. The ships flew on. The Militant ship took evasive turns but always stayed near the shadow, but not in it.

Come on, Spock, he thought. One more little bit of help so I can get you out of there.

Long minutes stretched ahead. The burst became overdue.

"Something going on with the enemy's shield's, Sir. Like they've blown a tuning circuit."

Ranger's phasers lashed out, scattered, reached through to seer metal between bright ripples. The enemy flagship careened slightly before settling back on course.

"Cease firing."

The Militant ship began to slow. 

"Warp two, sir."

"Warp one and a half."

Kirk hit the comm for security. "Security, prepare to board the Militant ship when her shields fail. We want the prisoners and we want the ship unharmed." He almost switched off, but added, "I want the prisoners treated well."

Kirk said to Helm, "Get us back into full shadow."

Helm brought them out of warp because the Militant ship fell out of warp.

"Enemy is heading back into the shadow, but doing it slowly."

Kirk hit a different switch. "Engineering, have your jump crew stand by in the transporter room. If we can't get you over there without a margin for safety, you aren't going."

The Militant ship appeared to drift. The tactical display showed her on the border of the shadow where lens effect could make the radiation worse in spots. Sweaty minutes ticked by.

Gunner said, "Shall I fire, sir?"

"No, wait until the next burst passes. They'll need the shields."

The burst struck, causing the display panels to sizzle. It increased and then faded.

"Damage report?"

"Engineering reports a few failed circuits throughout the ship which they will repair. Estimated repair time is two hours. There isn't much dense shadow this far out, Captain."

"Gunner, fire obliquely over her rear hull until the shields fail from lack of power."

The shields succumbed after less than a minute. Toyvan was quick shutting down, leaving only a surface burn mark on the upper hull.

Kirk pushed the comm for the transporter room. "Security, you may drop in."

Helm said, "The enemy ship continues to drift, sir. They will leave the shadow on the other side in twenty seven and a half minutes."

Kirk held down the comm switch. "Engineering jump team needs to be ready to go. You'll have at most twenty four minutes to make repairs. Likely less. Everyone is in EV suits, translation goggles?"

"Yes, sir," came the muffled reply. And another voice, "We're going to blow out the melted panel, sir, as a temporary measure. That compartment would be exposed to deep space all of the time, normally. We'll have to see how much of the heat pump is still working." In EV suits everyone in engineering sounded like Mouse.

Kirk wanted to say, That's not my chief beaming over, is it? But he stayed out of Long's decisions. And perhaps someone else sounded that competent. 

Kirk told Comm to put the security remote on the bridge monitor. He pointed that he wanted control from his armrest. Gall nodded. Kirk pressed the switch and the sounds of a firefight and much swearing and breathy running sounded.

"We've got one enemy down. Second team should beam into drop location D."

There was firing and grunting and a sharp bang of metal. Glissen's high pitched voice could be heard at a distance shouting commands. 

Yarrow's strained voice: "Four more down. Team two reports heavy fire. They aren't messing around, everything is set to kill."

Comm said, "Transporter room reports one casualty being returned to the Ranger. Third team beaming over."

That was every last member of security. They had security reserves amongst the rest of the crew, just like they had engineering reserves who had checked out on those stations. Kirk doubted he would need to call them up. Half were likely at their regular stations, anyway. And seventeen versus six, shouldn't be take too much longer.

Lots of swearing and grunting and movement of fabric.

Reverberating explosions came across, blanking out the mic. Then a long pause.

"Stun grenades did the trick, sir. Beaming back. Two more casualties."

Kirk felt stunned himself. "Security, you picked up eleven prisoners. Right? Engineering jump crew should beam over immediately."

The transporter tech responded two minutes later. "We brought in eleven prisoners, sir. Jump team dematerializing now."

"Incoming bogey, Captain," Gunner said. "Enemy ship at high warp."

"Shields up as soon as possible," Kirk said. 

The small ship dropped out of warp and opened fire, strafing the Ranger, which rocked her hard as the shields were still powering up. Additional alerts sounded.

Kirk leaned forward. "Helm get us between the captured ship and the bogey. The captured ship doesn't have shields and once the enemy realize it's only us over there they might try and destroy it."

The impulse engines surged. Helm feinted as if willing to collide with the small enemy ship, which veered off to avoid. Helm kept chasing while phasers lashed out, pushing the enemy ship clear of their prize.

"The strategy of seeming insanely dangerous is working, Fairfeather, keep at it," Kirk said.

The bridge crew held onto their armrests as the ship heaved on another sharp turn.

"Tico approaching, sir."

The small enemy ship went back into warp. Tico flashed by, giving chase. Another enemy ship went by, also giving chase.

Kirk exhaled. "Status on getting some power on the captured ship? Helm, we don't have enough tractor beam strength to do anything to arrest the flagship's drift?"

"No, sir. She's too big and moving too fast. We can only safely manipulate cargo containers or our shuttle."

"Time?"

"Ten minutes, forty seconds until captured ship leaves the planet shadow. Although momentum continues to push her farther from the star at a significant point four of light speed."

Kirk didn't want to interrupt the jump crew to ask for status. He bit his thumb instead.

The paging light from security went off on Kirk's armrest, but no message was forthcoming and that was highly unusual. He stared at it going on and off. He pressed the switch but it didn't make a connection. He turned to Comm but found Gall busy with intra-ship channels.

"Status on the Wasp?" Kirk said, mind leaping to things he'd lost track of.

"She's in planet shadow in a degrading stationary orbit. Spitfire is boarding a captured vessel, says they will assist Wasp as needed."

"Medical, status on the casualties?"

There was a long delay. "Two minor, one major. We'll report when we can."

The paging light from security continued to flash. This time, Kirk hit the switch to pipe the remote helmet mic through the bridge monitor again.

Yarrow's voice came across, clear and distant, not breathy. He must have set the helmet aside. "How's that feel, devil boy?"

Kirk turned to Riley hoping for a hint. A phaser sounded and Kirk was out of his chair.

"Mr. Riley, take the conn."

Kirk didn't wait to see Riley's reaction. Kirk leapt down the access hatch, which was open during battle stations, and slid down the rails on his boots to deck seven, which extended into the main body of the ship. He ran because to not run would crush something inside him. He powered his legs straight into security and found Yarrow, phaser aimed, standing over a Vulcan in brown robes collapsed in a tangle on the floor. The delicate ears were familiar, but Kirk could not afford to think about it. Everyone in the room froze. Glissen was standing on the prisoner's hand, she took a step back. 

Kirk was somewhere deep inside his own head and the world was projected on a sphere around him, too far away to touch. Except for Yarrow. Kirk ripped the phaser from his hand and in one continuous motion, struck him under the jaw with it.

Yarrow fell back. Scrambled. Came up seething. One of the other security crew grabbed Yarrow's arm, but didn't grab tight enough to keep hold. Kirk didn't aim the phaser, he balled his hands, one wrapped around the weapon's body, and stood stock still over the fallen body on the deck.

"Stand down, Lieutenant." Kirk said. He didn't dare give his rage an inch more.

Yarrow fumed, arms swinging like pendulums.

"Glissen, get medical down here." Kirk longed to hit her too but she was out of reach.

Kirk surveyed the room. Memorizing each face. In the corner was Mouse, stressed and cowering. He glanced back at her, decided she must have sent the page. She had the communications panel open and diagnostics hooked to it. Kirk walked around to glance into the brig cells. Their two rebel colonist prisoners were wide eyed. The ten other Vulcan prisoners were still unconscious, dropped into a heap along the back wall of one cell. Two had cuts on the brow, which implied they'd been knocked about, at least somewhat.

Chapel and the ship's two nurses arrived. They slid the limp form from the floor onto a stretcher. Kirk got a glimpse of Spock's bruised, slack face and looked away to glare at Yarrow rather than feel any more than he could afford.

Kirk snapped at Chapel, "Leave someone here to verify the condition of the rest of the prisoners."

Chapel gestured to one of the two nurses to remain. The nurse let go of the floating stretcher and pulled out his scanner. He looked up at the riled security personnel, then over at Kirk in question. Kirk gave him a hold signal with his hand and raised the phaser, fingered the setting to heavy stun. He wanted to put Yarrow in the brig, but worried about the loyalty of the rest of security. "You are confined to quarters, Yarrow."

Yarrow's head jerked back. "What?"

Kirk gave the two security crew on either side of Yarrow meaningful glances full of malice. They grabbed up Yarrow by the arms and turned him around to lead him through the door. Security's quarters were off the parallel passageway. Kirk followed, phaser at ready. Yarrow didn't put up resistance until pushed into his quarters.

"Sympathizing with the enemy, sir?" Yarrow muttered.

"You can do a job like this without losing your humanity, Lieutenant. The lines are only hard to draw if you don't want to draw them."

Kirk lowered the phaser after the door slid closed. He could not have felt emptier.

Back in security, Kirk watched as the same two compliant crewmembers flanked the door to the prisoners' cell and disabled the field, weapons at ready.

The nurse stepped over limbs to scan each torso. One set of eyes opened and he jumped back fast for someone of his squat stature. The dark eyes took in the weapons and remained still, brooding. The nurse held the Feinberger close again, checked the reading, and bustled out.

The forcefield hummed back into place.

"Doctor Chapel will have to interpret the readings, Commander." he said.

Kirk nodded and gestured that he should go.

Kirk balled his hands into fists to control the shaking in them, but it made the rest of the security grow alert again.

Kirk strode over to Glissen, held up a finger. "You have one chance to redeem yourself, Ensign. One. Understood?" He had no choice but to move command to the next in line. He needed some kind of functioning security for landings and boardings or his ship was half useless. His limbs yearned for violent movement, his pretty words to Yarrow notwithstanding. 

"Yes, sir." Glissen's voice was weak. She seemed to be trying to read Kirk's thoughts.

Rather than satisfy his vomitous urge to hit someone else, Kirk strode away, pounding the deck with his heels. He had to get back to the bridge. He did so against every fiber of him desiring to check on Spock.


	20. Still Human

The bridge was tensely quiet, the glances full of alarm. Riley stood beside the center chair as if he knew Kirk's precise arrival time.

Kirk took the center seat, feeling surly and expecting he looked it.

"Status?" Kirk asked.

"Engineering has partial power restored on the enemy vessel. They are installing a remote for basic steering using the docking thrusters."

Kirk rubbed the back of his neck, dropped his hand back to the armrest. "They are beaming back within the window?"

"Yes, sir." The response was crisp, almost forcefully desiring to please.

That was a first. Kirk wondered if ruling by fear did make things that much easier.

"Comm, do we have communications yet?"

"Intermittent, Captain. And only for short distances due to high levels of background radiation."

Helm said, "Enemy ship is no longer drifting out of the planet shadow."

"Transporter room reports engineering jump crew has returned, Captain."

Quiet minutes ticked by. Kirk felt like he inhabited an alien body that refused to back down from fighting mode. Chief Long stepped onto the bridge and Riley made space for her beside the command chair.

"Only the aux pump is working over there to dump heat so you have at most one quarter power, probably a lot less. We installed a remote for basic steering. She's got a pretty good head of steam on her so we didn't risk doing more. Team was a little jumpy about booby traps or doing the wrong thing given the complexity of the controls."

Kirk said, "Scanner, at current speed, how long before we are in a safe zone for a strong burst from the star?"

"Three hours, fifty-eight minutes, Captain."

Scanner's speech faded out, seeming to want to say more. Kirk turned and waited for more.

"If I may, sir. We are losing shadow effectiveness due to lensing and diffusion. It won't be safe for us to escort the enemy ship the whole way."

"Wasp and Spitfire?" Kirk turned to Comm.

"I can put Commander Ashe on, sir. But the connection is degrading due to distance even though we're in the same radiation shadow."

Suddenly everyone was justifying themselves. Kirk waggled a hand indicating she should put Ashe through.

"You need assistance, Commander?" Kirk said.

"I'm not taking anymore grinding down of my pride on this. You've got the flagship looks like on sensors?"

"Yes. But we need to warp out. We are in a bad position. We'll go on ahead and wait for the flagship at a safe distance. When we get subspace we'll try and get her fully repaired. Worst case we'll arrange a tug."

"Word from Seyburn?"

"Nothing. I'm going to send a preliminary report to command when we are clear enough," Kirk said. "Just so you know."

Ashe said, "Great. You can tell them I miscalculated because I hate losing."

"I'll let you file those particulars. I didn't see what happened."

"Good. Well, on the sunny side I've always wanted a fast ship, and as soon as our repairs are made, we're going to patch up this little rum runner of a Vulcan ship and take it along as well. Don't wait up for us."

"Let us know if you change your mind and need help. Kirk out."

Kirk took up a padd and composed a short report that let Starfleet know the Vulcan Militant threat close to earth had been greatly diminished. He should feel happier. He felt very little.

Kirk handed the padd to Riley to hold. "Comm, put that report through highly encrypted whenever you can contact a relay. And CC Commodore Stone on it."

Comm's hands moved over the board, "Yes, sir."

Kirk nodded. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving his limbs weak and numb.

Kirk hit the switch for medical. "Chapel, what's the status on your patient?"

There was a delay. "Working on it."

Kirk pushed the switch off harder than necessary.

Kirk said, "Helm, enemy flagship is still maintaining position in the shadow?"

"Yes, sir."

"What's our interval on the star, Scanner?"

"We're overdue for a burst, sir."

"Helm, hold our position here until the next burst. Let the enemy ship go on ahead."

Kirk pushed to his feet. "Lieutenant Riley, after the next burst weakens, warp us out at maximum to a safe distance for even a very strong burst. Position us so we can rendezvous with our prize and hold there. You have the conn."

Kirk walked to sickbay. He dreaded arriving with the same pain he'd suffered staying away until he'd settled his duties.

Kirk stopped just inside the door. The ship had three diagnostic beds, two were occupied, one by a security crewman with thick bandages on his lower legs. Chapel was adjusting the monitor over Spock's bed and talking to the nurse. The nurse moved away to fetch something, giving Kirk a clear view of the unconscious patient, face bruised and cut but clean.

Kirk had intended to stay out of the way, but he stepped up right beside the bed. "How is he?"

Chapel said, "He's been stunned multiple times, which is very dangerous for a Vulcan. Otherwise bruising to the kidneys, heart. Two broken fingers."

Kirk felt ill. All that was happening on his ship, while he sat on the bridge. Kirk reached up to put a hand on Spock's arm.

"Commander, you don't touch an injured Vulcan. Ever."

Kirk withdrew his hand. He needed to pull Gall aside away from the bridge, figure out how to message Sarek.

Chapel picked up a hypo and held it to the light to set the dosage. "Nurse, mix thirty CCs of penzaderine without the stabilizer, it's toxic to Vulcans."

Kirk looked up at her. "You're familiar with Vulcan medicine."

The lighting dimmed. The burst must have arrived.

"I better be after interning three years there."

Kirk put his attention on her tone of voice. "You don't sound happy about it."

"It didn't work out." She injected the hypo.

"The job or something else?"

"Vulcans can be as unfeeling as they act like they are. Let's just put it that way."

She watched the monitor. "They can also fake just about any reading." She pulled the security strap up from under the bed. "Can you do the other side, Commander?"

"You don't need them."

She stared. "He's a prisoner; isn't he?"

"No."

"No? I don't understand. You do realize Vulcans are three times our strength. He can overpower all of us."

"It's a long story."

Spock's hand twitched.

"Better secure those fingers even if we aren't securing the patient." She went into the storage room in back which was larger than sickbay proper.

Kirk brushed Spock's arm where the robe was thickest. "It's all right. I'm here," he said in a low voice.

Chapel hustled back. Wearing heavy gloves, she secured a hand splint while the nurse held a scanner to the area. She gave a tug to a broken finger that made Kirk twitch, but Spock didn't move. Kirk's heart began racing again.

Chapel made a noise of satisfaction and waved the nurse away. She put her hands on her hips and studied the overhead monitor. Adjusted it. Made a noise of annoyance. Lifted her hand to adjust it again.

"He's half human," Kirk said.

Her hand paused halfway to the controls. She pulled out her Feinberger and scanned Spock's chest and studied the display on the portable scanner for a while.

"What the devil? Someone you know?"

"Yes."

Kirk found a chair by the door, carried it over and sat on it beside the bed. He was tempted to get a status from Riley, then decided to hell with it.

Chapel said, "Once he's recovered from being stunned, he should go into a healing trance. You staying long?"

"Until he wakes up."

"May not look it, but he's half awake now. Just so you know."

Chapel stopped by her other patient and consulted with the nurse, brought over more equipment. The ship vibrated as warp engaged.

Kirk whispered. "I hope you can forgive me what happened."

The ship flew on. Sickbay was closer to the nacelle strut mount points in the center of the ship, which gave warp a distinctive buzzing rumble. Kirk felt as if the ship flew on without him, even though he was in it.

Chapel finished with the other patient about the time the ship dropped out of warp again. She went to the workstation beside the storage room and sat down at a monitor and began recording reports.

Kirk listened to the litany of injuries to Spock and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt empty and impotent. The war with the colonists was winding down, but the one with Vulcan felt dreadfully inevitable given how even his own crew behaved.

He heard footsteps and took his fingers off his eyes. When the air hit them they were burning.

"He'll be all right, Commander," Chapel said. She didn't sound bored, for once.

"I don't know if we'll be."

The door swished open. It was Rand. She started at the sight of him, looked away as if embarrassed.

"What is it, Yeoman?"

"Riley wanted you to know that we are holding position awaiting the enemy ship. Glissen wanted you to know all the weapons are secure except the one you took. She has two other security crew confined to quarters."

Kirk felt his hip. He'd forgotten he had Yarrow's phaser.

"Thanks. Tell Riley to stay on unless he's overtired or we get word from Tico."

"Yes, sir. Do you need anything? Coffee?"

"Yes. Thank you."

She brought coffee and left again, not meeting his eyes. Kirk put the coffee down within reach. He thought about how much of himself he'd been putting into this crew over the last four months and his heart felt even more like lead.

Spock's eyes half opened and he let out a harsh breath.

"How are you doing?" Kirk asked. He almost put a hand on Spock's shoulder. He rested it on the edge of the bed instead. If he stretched out a finger he could just touch Spock's robes.

Spock looked around, swallowed hard twice.

"I'm sorry," Kirk said. He wanted to say more but feared his voice wouldn't be steady.

Chapel came back. Spoke in Vulcan about meditation, timing, and Spock not being left alone. Kirk's ability to focus on the words was too poor to catch more. He hadn't practiced in months.

Spock nodded and closed his eyes.

Chapel said, "He's going into a healing trance."

The monitor showed a gradual decline in life signs, except for metabolic activity, which rose.

Chapel said, "Should be out of it in six hours or so. I'll stay, Commander, you don't have to. Nothing much will be happening. Really. Nothing much."

Kirk picked up his coffee, cradled it in his hands. He took a seat again. He wasn't ready for the bridge, which was where he needed to go next and put in another good show of leadership force. Chapel adjusted the controls on the monitor then dropped her hand as if giving up.

Kirk had never seen Spock sleep naturally. But he wasn't sleeping now either, even though his long lashes rested unmoving on his cheeks. His hair was longer in the back, and his cropped bangs were mussed. Kirk couldn't imagine how anyone could willfully hurt something so beautiful.

Chapel was still there, watching him. "Know each other really well, I see," she said, and walked away.

Coffee gone after nursing it as long as possible, Kirk stood up. "I'll be back when I can. Call me if anything changes."

She nodded, eyes locked on him. Like everyone else, she seemed to be trying to figure him out.

Riley swung out of the center chair and stood at attention beside it. "Sir. I went ahead and did preliminary station ratings for the recent action." He gestured at Rand to hand him a padd.

Kirk accepted it and nodded. He had forgotten that the crew had done well enough during the battle.

Riley bounced on his toes twice. The bridge was silent, intent on boards with nothing interesting on them.

Riley said, "How is the prisoner, sir?"

"Chapel is treating him. He's expected to recover."

"I'm glad to hear it, sir."

Kirk rubbed his face with one hand. Imagining Spock being tormented while he sat in that very seat made it feel electrified. He sensed Riley was watching him. He breathed in and held it. Let it go with a slow count of fifteen.

Kirk asked, "What's the status on ship's repairs?"

"In progress. Engineering reports we cannot repair the damaged sensor array on the port side. We've filled out a request to put in for a dock repair as soon as it can be arranged."

Kirk nodded. "Everything else they believe they can fix?"

"As of right now. It was mostly surge damage."

"That implies the ship needs to be wired differently."

Riley said, "Difficult to dissipate excess energy without a ground available."

"You're reminding me that you started off in civil engineering, Lieutenant. Don't think about how you'd do it if it were easy. Think about what's at hand, out here."

Kirk then worried that he'd come across as chastising. But Riley seemed to be thoughtful, only. Kirk gave him a small smile, which he didn't feel, but wanted to project because he needed his crew, especially the ones who were still human.


	21. Guest, Part 1

It had been three hours according to the clock between the nav and helm consoles, which was operating in a time dilation field. Kirk circled the stations, getting minor updates he had to focus hard to follow. He came back to the center seat. He wanted to visit sickbay again, but worried how it would be perceived. Then decided he didn't care how it was perceived. 

"Do you need a break, Mr. Riley?" Kirk asked.

"No, sir. I'm fine."

"I'm going to leave you with the conn, then."

Sickbay was still as a tomb. Chapel sat at the small desk in the back. The bed monitors had been muted. 

Kirk walked over to the injured crewman who wore a pain neutralizer that presumably explained his slack jawed appearance. Kirk resumed his seat beside the other occupied bed. Spock lay with his head canted to the side, eyes closed. He looked incredibly vulnerable and Kirk wished he hadn't left him alone.

There were a hundred things clamoring to be spoken but Chapel would overhear. 

Chapel came over, watched the monitor for a while. "He's doing much better with you here," she said, and walked away.

The weight of everything settled hard on Kirk. He watched Spock's chest rise, pause, descend, then a long long gap passed before it rose again. 

Rand came in with reports. Stood at the foot of the bed while he looked them over, departed again with a nod.

Hours ticked by. Kirk pondered the state of the Federation, feeling bleak in the moments where he was honest about what could realistically be expected of the future.

Spock was in a trance more than eight hours. Chapel came by more often. Kirk stopped pacing and looked at her hopefully. 

"He's eighty percent healed. I expect he'll come up out of it soon. You know how Vulcans get broken from a healing trance, right?"

Kirk shook his head.

"They need pain. Just so you're warned." She held up a nerve stimulator, set it to high, placed it on the tray next to the bed.

Kirk pushed his shoulders back and pretended the thought of that device being used didn't make his own nerves scream. He sat down again. 

Minutes later Spock's hand moved. Kirk stood up and called to Chapel. 

She bent over Spock and spoke to him in Vulcan. Spock breathed unevenly, replied in a whisper. Kirk locked his hands behind his back to keep them off Spock. Chapel put the stimulator on the side of Spock's neck. Kirk's arms jerked, longing to stop her. The first jolt made Spock's neck rope taut. The second made him emit a noise of pain. The third, his arm came up and he moved her hand away. He smoothly sat up.

Kirk exhaled in relief, heart racing, and stepped closer. "You all right?"

"Yes." Spock looked a little ruffled, but more alert than seemed possible moments ago. 

Kirk wanted to grab his arm, but Chapel was right there, unwrapping the splint from Spock's hand with great care not to touch him.

Chapel ran the Feinberger over Spock's chest. "He can be released anytime. Where are you going to put him?"

Kirk rubbed his chin. "My quarters have the only door on the ship that can't be overridden by security."

Chapel lowered the scanner and gave Kirk a dubious look from under her eyelashes.

"That all right with you?" Kirk asked Spock.

Spock nodded.

"Why don't I get you settled in."

It was mid-second shift, so the corridors were empty. Kirk felt more relieved at this than he wished he was. He didn't want to feel the need to explain why he was leading a Vulcan around the ship, even his ship.

"There is a second bunk here," Kirk said, pulling out the bunk opposite his own. "A narrow one. There are actually four in here, if you hunt around, just in case the ship has to carry more than the usual number of beings."

"Sit down and rest a bit," Kirk said.

"I do not require rest," Spock said.

"Well, sit down and don't rest."

Spock sat on the extra bunk and slid back on it so his soft desert boots were up on the edge of Kirk's bunk. He looked up at Kirk expectantly. Kirk put a hand out and held it over Spock's shoulder. When Spock didn't react, Kirk let his hand fall on a bony shoulder and said, "You can't imagine how pleased I am to have you safe. And I'm deeply sorry I didn't manage to keep you safer, from my own crew, no less."

Spock met his gaze with that youthful steadiness of his. "I am rather pleased to be here, no matter the circumstances."

"Are you sure you're all right? I don't mean physically."

"I am all right, James."

Kirk hadn't heard his first name in months. He felt undone. And he doubted Spock's assurances. He squeezed the shoulder under his hand, and managed a pained smile.

"I'll take better care of you from here on. But I do need to go to the bridge. Here's a padd, don't use it to edit anything, if you would, please. But you can look around the ship's schematics or watch the feeds."

Spock nodded. When he looked away he looked vaguely haunted, or maybe Kirk was just projecting.

Kirk said, "The lock is keyed to my biometrics only. I'll add you to it when I figure out how. No one will bother you in here."

\-------- 8888 --------

On the bridge, Riley appeared baggy-eyed. Kirk relieved him and sent him off to rest. The bridge crew felt exactly the same as when Kirk had left, quiet and crisp, so he knew it wasn't general knowledge that he had taken their former prisoner to his quarters. 

There was still no word on the Tico, but the background radiation may be interfering with communications. Kirk wondered if they should have given chase also, even as slow as the Ranger was in warp. Instead, they kept pace with the captured flagship and advised Wasp on repairs and the best sequence of maneuvers for escaping the star between radiation bursts when the time came. 

Shift changed. Riley returned, looking considerably better. He stood beside the center chair for a while. 

Seemingly out of the blue, although Kirk suspected he had to build up to it, he said, "I can take the conn if you'd like to rotate off, Captain."

Kirk turned to him, observed his better than normal posture, the way his gaze held steady on the screen, the way he failed to rock up on his toes. The ongoing professionalism generated by Kirk's losing control gave him a dark amusement as much as it depressed him. It wasn't real professionalism, it was a façade for self-preservation.

Kirk waited half an hour to verify everything was ship shape, then he handed off the conn with the instruction that if things were quiet Riley could hand it off to the split shift officer of the deck if he needed a break.

Kirk found Gall in the mess area. 

"I need to get a message to our usual mystery correspondent. Any ideas?"

"The first communications we will regain will be legitimate messages to one of the Federation relays on the spacelane thirty light years away on a subspace channel at full power on a tight beam. Anything else will require we get most of a light year away from this monster star."

"Understood. Let me know when you think we can try sending something."

"I'll be studiously considering the problem in the meantime, sir."

\-------- 8888 --------

Spock looked up as Kirk entered his quarters. He was still on the spare bunk, reading from the padd. Apparently hadn't moved.

"Just me," Kirk said.

"I recognized your footsteps approaching." Spock placed the padd aside.

Kirk sat on his own bunk across from Spock, looking him over, trying to discern signs of internal damage. Spock seemed more certain of himself but otherwise the same as Kirk remembered. 

"I'm glad you're here," Kirk said. "How are you doing?"

Spock put his feet on the floor to make room. "You inquired about that already. I assume you are asking repeatedly to relieve your own emotional strain since you are aware of the answer I am able to provide."

Kirk clasped his hands together and leaned on his elbows propped on his knees. "I am worried about you, but it is my worry, as you say. I feel like I'm asking for your sake, but it might be entirely for mine, since asking doesn't change the state of the world." Kirk bowed his head and smiled painfully. "You are undermining the entire idea of human caring."

"I do not intend to. I have been steeped in rather the opposite for ninety six days."

"You are an idiot," Kirk said.

"I expected that you would disapprove."

"I did. I do."

"You can be as annoyingly protective as my father."

"Ever occur to you that it might be for the same reason?"

Spock fell silent, thinking. "No."

"Speaking of which, can I get you something to eat? Forget I asked. Let me get us both something to eat. Being around you makes me hungry for some reason."

Kirk returned with two vegetarian plates, which were even more tasteless than the 'continental favorites.' As he dug in, Kirk decided that so called vegetarian was easier to eat since he didn't even know what the colored blocks were pretending to be.

Kirk paused in eating and put his hand on Spock's ankle, after the usual warning of hovering his hand nearby.

"You okay?"

Spock tilted his head. "You repeat that question often."

"I still feel guilty as hell. And helpless as hell."

"I do not understand. But if it assists you to express these sentiments, I have no limit on how many times I am capable of hearing them."

Kirk pictured what must have been going on in security before he arrived. He would have to look at the tapes to write his report and then wouldn't even have to imagine. The helpless pain returned with even more force.

"I could fly into a violent rage at the drop of a hat," Kirk said. "My crew knows that and has been doing everything short of saluting me in response to that threat. Me, a threat to my crew."

"This I do understand."

Kirk looked up with hope. "You do?"

"Vulcans are peaceful, most Vulcans are, that is, because we have adopted the difficult disciplines of Surak to suppress our violent passions. If we are pushed too far, they can re-emerge, and these passions are difficult to restrain once let loose. They must burn out."

Kirk relaxed. "You do understand."

Spock fell thoughtful. "You threaten your crew because of the harm to me?"

"That and my helplessness over the situation with Vulcan. But yes, mostly over you. But I'd be nearly as enraged if you were one of the other random prisoners." Kirk didn't feel hungry any longer. He sat back from the plate on his lap. "How did you get singled out?"

"I made the mistake of assuming you would be one of the ones boarding our vessel. As a result I was the first one stunned and the first to subsequently recover."

"I was busy fighting a battle on the bridge. I didn't have time to check on who'd been brought back over."

"In that case, your guilt is misplaced."

"No, it's not. My crew are entirely my responsibility. And who we are failing to be is destroying me. I've been living on delusion, and learning that is destroying me too."

"If I may, I believe you are overreacting. Perhaps you need rest."

Kirk gradually let the affection he felt grow into a smile. "Spock, I wouldn't let anyone else on this ship talk to me that way. Except maybe my CMO. But she couldn't bring herself to care enough to say it."

"I thought I was hallucinating when she spoke Vulcan the first time. Quite disorienting."

"She took me by surprise too. Some heartbreak in there, so she doesn't mention it."

"I did not sense that, but I would not expect to."

Kirk smiled. "I got the distinct sense she was taking something out on you that she couldn't take out on some other Vulcan because he isn't around. I'm guessing he."

"That would explain her odd choice of words in Vulcan. I thought it merely awkward language learning. There are certain Vulcan words only used during martial arts. She has an affinity for those."

Kirk laughed. Spock's expression didn't change. 

Kirk finished his plate. Set it aside. "I'm having a hard time believing you are not more emotionally injured than you are letting on."

Spock pointedly looked away for the first time since he'd been on board. "I am reluctant to explain my state of mind because you have a great number of other concerns."

Kirk smiled slightly. "Worrying about you without data isn't going to help me."

Spock nodded, continued to stare at the wall over Kirk's shoulder. "I have been through experiences I had not imagined plausible before. This most recent experience of violence seems incidental."

Kirk reached for Spock's hand, and Spock smoothly pulled it out of reach.

Spock found Kirk's gaze again. "I do not mean to seem aloof. But the hands contain the highest concentration of nerve endings. It is difficult to avoid spontaneously melding with you if you touch me thusly."

Kirk felt his body warming up. "A meld sounds intriguing, I admit. What I read of them."

Spock steepled his hands and rested them in his lap. "I find melding to be unpleasant."

Kirk considered that. "On the bridge of your family's ship, when you caught me when I got thrown going to warp. That wasn't a meld?"

"That was barely more than nonverbal communication. Talking without speaking. Melding is a partial to complete merging of consciousnesses." Spock's shoulders rose up tautly as he spoke.

Kirk saw these signs and worried more. "I'll be more careful. I don't intend to make you uncomfortable."

Spock said, "I can tolerate direct nerve contact if I have a few uninterrupted moments to prepare."

Kirk was sensing damage and it made him feel better to get access to it. When Spock was burying it all, it worried Kirk more.

Kirk heard the shift change chime with some surprise.

"Do you need to report to your duties?" Spock asked.

"No. Riley can decide to stay on or not. If we go to alert I'll be out of here like a shot. Let me see the padd, I've been trying to optimize the shifts, and after the battle, I realize I haven't considered the reserve personnel for critical areas that might all get tied up at the same time, let me show you the issues. I expect you can help."

"I would like to be of use."

Kirk turned the padd around to show him the columns of names. "Note, I can arrange for additional crew to work on qualifying for other stations if necessary. Assuming we'll have downtime again."

The door chimed five seconds after Spock raised his head in awareness of someone approaching. Kirk could've heard the footsteps if his head had been down on the bunk, but not otherwise. 

Kirk stood and triggered the door. It was Riley. Showtime, Kirk thought.


	22. Guest, Part 2

Chapter 22 - Guest, Part 2

"Commander." Riley clearly meant to say more but struggled. "Sir. May I speak with you?"

Kirk tried to dig up some patience via amusement. "Of course. What is it?"

Riley glanced inside. Spock would be clearly visible behind Kirk. Riley's mouth worked. 

Kirk said, "Lieutenant, you need to learn to criticize me if you feel you need to. Just come out with it."

"I'm not comfortable with this, sir."

"Well done. Come on in. Introductions are in order."

The door closing behind Riley made him jump. Spock sat forward on the bunk but did not stand. In Vulcan culture it could be seen as challenging to rise. Spock looked to Kirk for a cue. 

"Lt. Kevin Riley, this is Spock."

Riley held out an uncertain hand. Kirk pushed it down. "Vulcans don't shake hands," he said gently. "Touch telepathy."

"Oh. Right." Riley swallowed hard and put his hand behind his back. He looked at Kirk as though wondering if he really knew him.

Kirk said, "Spock is son of the Vulcan ambassador to the Federation, although the ambassador has been withdrawn from earth."

"And?"

"You're a tough audience, Riley," Kirk said, amused instead of angered. He had to stay on this track.

"Spock's the reason we knew where the ships were hiding, and he's the reason one of them couldn't exceed warp three because he'd tampered with the controller. He's been undercover."

Riley nodded, brows low. Kirk waved that he should speak and Riley said slowly, "Agents can be double agents."

Kirk said, "Spock's half human, his mother is from earth."

"Oh." This seemed brighter.

"He also happens to be an old, very good friend of mine."

Riley appeared to let that sink in. His posture shifted to wary. "I'm surprised you didn't do more to Yarrow than you did."

"So am I." Kirk breathed in and out. "If I hadn't had his bad example to avoid following I likely would have."

"Your friend seems recovered," Riley said.

Kirk tilted his head in Spock's direction. "He's right here."

Riley flushed, which was a bright affair. "Of course." He turned to Spock. "You seem recovered. Quickly."

"Vulcan healing trance. Accelerates recovery to from 80 to 90% of uninjured function."

"That's convenient."

"It takes years to master."

Riley rocked up on his toes.

"Feel better about the situation?" Kirk asked.

"Yes. But the crew won't."

"I've promised to see to Spock's safety and I intend to do that. You can tell the crew whatever you like of what I told you." He really wanted to add, and I'll try to care what the crew think, but held back. Riley seemed to sense the unspoken.

"Understood. Let me go drop this on the right ears and then you can come and make the rounds of the bridge in half an hour."

Kirk squeezed Riley's upper arm. "Nicely arranged. I'll see you in thirty."

\-------- 8888 -------

The feel of the bridge had shifted. The professionalism was still there, but there was an undercurrent of emotional confusion. Kirk went about the bridge rounds as if nothing were different and some of the undercurrents eased. At the moment, as long as the crew followed orders, Kirk planned to ignore it.

Kirk returned to his quarters an hour later, three hours before the first full duty shift of the day. He freshened up and changed into a soft t-shirt. He was aware of eyes following him around his cabin as he went about his routine.

"Do you need anything?"

Spock shook his head.

"You're sure?" 

"Yes."

"I have to catch a bit of sleep."

Blanket arranged, Kirk touched the light to make it go off. In the dimness Spock put aside the padd and stretched out on the bunk, which put him just over an arms-length away. 

Kirk tried to banish the impressions of the day that were assaulting him, keeping him from relaxing into sleep. The cabin air itself seemed to be prickling him.

Kirk sat up and swung his legs over to sit on the edge of his bunk. He could trace the shape of Spock's robed form in the darkness, longed with an ache to undo the what had happened to him. But Spock had pulled away from him the last time he'd reached out, and deserved to be left unmolested unless he indicated otherwise.

"You're sure I can't do anything for you?" Kirk's voice sounded quiet in the darkness. He wanted to trace his hands over Spock, to overwrite the memory of violence before it burned in. He couldn't breathe properly this longing was so great.

Fabric shifted as Spock turned to him. "I am coming to the conclusion that you are more distressed than I am by events."

"I am supposed to be in command, but I wasn't able to be. I'm supposed to be keeping the peace, but I'm not able to."

"I feel quite safe at the moment," Spock said. "My situation has drastically improved. I have complete trust in you."

Kirk crushed his hands under his thighs to keep them to himself. He breathed in and out, which sounded loud. He felt empty. But worse than that; he felt that if he went and beat Yarrow to a bloody pulp that the emptiness would be assuaged. 

"I don't know myself," Kirk said. 

Spock sat up on one elbow. "I too have been experiencing that realization."

"War does that to people. But I thought I'd seen enough of it that the revelations wouldn't be this stark anymore."

There was silence. Then that sense of alien calm came over Kirk for the first time in four months. It washed into his limbs, into his chest. He was complete. He was still uncertain and strained about a myriad of topics, but he was whole.

Spock said, "I do not know how to help you."

Kirk sat straight. Whatever that feeling was, Spock wasn't in conscious control of it. 

Kirk said, "You shouldn't need to. I'm my own responsibility. I'll leave you be. I need to sleep anyway."

This time Kirk fell asleep moments after he stretched out on his bunk.

He woke to the sound of the door to the head closing. It was twenty minutes before shift. He rose and got dressed. In front of the mirror, he pushed his shoulders back. Surly was a look that worked for him. It would likely get him through another day.

\-------- 8888 -------

By the middle of the shift, the crew had settled down to routine. The power of boredom had apparently smothered the shock at the unexpected behavior of their commander.

Kirk waved for Riley to step over. "I'm worried about Tico. They may have called for help and we didn't hear because we're too close to this supergiant radiation source."

"We could warp farther away and again wait for the flagship to drift to us."

"I thought about that, but we have to warp several hours away and that leaves Wasp in trouble with only Spitfire to assist."

"Commander Ashe stated that we shouldn't wait for him."

"He's letting his pride speak for him." Kirk turned. "Scanner, would our probe have enough power to relay communications to us from where we are to wherever it would need to be positioned outside the worst of the noise?"

"It might, sir, but it doesn't handle subspace transmissions."

Kirk rubbed his cheek. "And Tico wouldn't broadcast a distress call on all frequencies given that there are rebel colonist ships in the neighborhood. At least I expect Seyburn wouldn't unless he has run out of choices. Let's launch the probe anyway just in case."

Kirk had settled back into his seat. He had two conflicting problems to solve and too little data and too few tools.

Comm said, "Security requests your presence, Captain. Says one of the Vulcan prisoners insists on speaking with you."

Every nervous undercurrent that had faded from the bridge crew renewed in strength.

"Tell them I'll be right down. Riley. Conn."

Kirk didn't fully trust himself to enter security and remain professional. He walked with a deliberate pace along the long passageway from the lift to the aft brig area, concentrating on every muscle of his body. It smelled different down here, like old storage and machine oil. 

Glissen stood mostly at attention inside security.

She spoke too fast. "Thank you for coming down, sir. He insists on talking to you. Been driving us crazy." She gestured at the brig beside the door. Kirk scanned the room. The prisoners had been divvied up, three or four to a cell, all of them stood at the forcefield, watching outward. Ranger needed to arrange an offload to a base or a larger ship. Soon.

"You are in charge?" Came a strange voice.

Kirk turned to a Vulcan with a strong forehead and shoulder length hair that half covered his ears.

"Yes. I'm Commander James Kirk."

"I demand to be made aware of the fate of our crewmember who was removed from this area well over one of your days ago."

"He's recovered. He's being kept in isolation."

The Vulcan seemed to be memorizing Kirk's face for later. 

"Humans are capable of extreme deception. I demand to be shown proof."

Kirk simultaneously recognized both the commander in the being across from him and the enemy. He appreciated the juxtaposition for long moments. 

The Vulcan said, "Do you comply?"

Kirk smiled faintly at his prisoner's bluster and held up a hand to forestall Glissen stepping in. "By our Antaras-Geneva Conventions you have the right to verify his treatment. Even though I'm quite certain you haven't complied with any of those conventions in your own operations, Commander."

Kirk surveyed the other cells full of dark-eyed gazes. "I'll see what I can arrange."

The Vulcan commander followed along the forcefield to the edge of the cell as Kirk went to the door. "It is imperative."

Kirk stopped, wondered if he was correctly sensing fear. The Vulcan raised his chin slightly, a pride saving move that supported the fear theory. 

"I'll be back," Kirk said with casual ease.

Glissen followed him, began to speak. Kirk held a finger to his lips. In the lift he indicated she could speak.

"Their hearing is that good?"

"Oh yes."

"I hope bothering you was the right thing to do, sir. And prisoner has recovered, sir?"

Kirk had no choice but to pin hope for that entire department on her. He kept his face neutral as he nodded.

"I want to apologize, sir. But, you should have told us we needed to look out for an insider."

"I told you to treat any prisoners well. That should have been sufficient."

The lift opened.

Her face worked. "But things happen."

Kirk stepped out and turned while she remained in the lift. "Yes, they do. But if I had informed you who he was, and the mission went badly, I didn't want to risk revealing to his fellow Militants that he was a traitor, in case he needed to continue hiding among them. Understand?"

"Oh. Yes sir. Hadn't thought of that."

The lift doors closed. Kirk collected Chapel from sickbay and brought her to his quarters.

Spock was standing facing the door when it opened, presumably having heard two sets of footsteps approach.

Kirk said, "Your old commander insists he receive proof of your recovery."

Spock nodded. Kirk stepped back and gestured for Chapel to get a scan. 

Spock's brow furrowed as she worked. He seemed distant.

"What's his name, by the way?"

"Zuram. He is from the south."

"Is that relevant?"

Chapel answered. "It means he's no relation as far back as the insanely obsessive records would be kept." She snapped the scanner closed. "Sir."

"I'll join you in the corridor, Doctor." When the door closed, Kirk said, "I can't decide if Zuram is really worried about you or something else is going on."

Spock hesitated replying. "I cannot speak for him. It is typical command behavior, is it not?"

"It is. But something about his behavior is off. But then again I'm not particularly familiar with him or Vulcans in command of anything." Kirk made his face relax. "Need anything?"

"I would like to be useful."

"I keep thinking of ways you can be, but I want you to be recovered first. Speaking of which, I won't make you face Zuram. He's going to have to be happy with a scan."

Spock nodded, one of those slow single nods that was like a bow.

In the lift, Kirk said to Chapel. "I'm going to let you deal with Commander Zuram in your own special way."

The lift doors opened as she considered this. 

Kirk said, "I thought you'd enjoy the opportunity."

She strode out and Kirk followed, straining to catch up. 

"Commander Zuram, this is my Chief Medical Officer. She has a timestamped scan of your crewmember to show you."

Kirk stepped away and crossed his arms. The other prisoners were standing up to see the only entertainment available.

Chapel held up the scanner screen where it could be viewed through the forcefield and said in Vulcan, "Here, the date and time of the scan. You can see the oddities of his physiology so you can be assured it is a scan of your half-human colleague."

Zuram stared at her, mentally adjusted, said in Vulcan, "I will not be allowed to see him."

Chapel kept up the Vulcan. "I really doubt that will be possible. For reasons I doubt you would ever understand."

"I require visual proof."

"You don't need it, logically. He is being treated well. Better than he deserves."

"It is imperative that I see him." The fear didn't re-emerge. Kirk watched for it.

She snapped the scanner closed. "I can pass a message on, if you wish. If it doesn't constitute a security risk, of course."

"What is our disposition?"

Chapel turned to Kirk, translated. 

"We haven't determined that yet," Kirk said. "Something will happen as soon as it can be arranged."

Zuram said to Chapel in Vulcan, "If you see our crewmember again, tell him. Tell him I do not know where we failed."

There the fear was again, Kirk was certain of it.

Chapel nodded. 

In the turbolift, she started to explain the conversation and Kirk cut her off. "I understood it."

"Oh." She straightened her arms. "Learned it on the pillow, did you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" 

The lift opened and she stepped out. Kirk took the lift handle. 

Kirk said, "Learned it in a sort of survival school, actually. You saw the scan just now. You know for a fact I haven't touched him."

"I wondered about that. I'm vaguely disappointed in you. Sir."

Kirk's face heated up, but not in embarrassment, in challenge. He tried hard not to smile. This was the kind of banter he and Gary always engaged in and he missed it as dearly as he missed Gary. 

"As you were, Doctor."

"Hm." She turned away, feigning something like Vulcan detachment.


	23. Gifts

Kirk finished off his shift on the bridge and handed over the conn to second shift as it arrived. In the corridor, he asked Rand to fetch two vegetarian meals to his quarters. She nodded, studying his eyes too closely as she did so.

"Have you filed a report, sir?" Rand asked as she delivered the tray. Meaning, he assumed, had he told Starfleet about their passenger.

"Not one with that kind of detail. We haven't even been able to send a summary one yet."

"But you'll do so, sir?"

"I will." Kirk didn't specify exactly when.

She glanced at Spock, stood taller, and asked if she was dismissed.

The door closed. 

Spock said, "My presence is an inconvenience to you."

Kirk set the tray aside with undo care and dropped himself on his bunk. 

"Spock." Kirk stared off beyond the bulkhead before meeting Spock's warm brown eyes. "I've lost my faith in this crew. I've lost my faith in this mission. I've almost lost faith in myself." He sat, arms lax. "You are the only bright spot in my existence at the moment."

Spock expressed surprise that was quickly muted. "I see."

"Don't worry about any problems you think you are causing. They're nothing I won't happily handle to keep you here. In the confusion of war, you can get away with a lot if you know what you are doing."

"I am pleased to hear that. I am not ready to return to Vulcan."

Kirk smiled painfully. "You thought you were in trouble last time."

"Indeed."

Kirk handed him a tray, finding pleasure in offering him something to eat. He didn't mention Zuram's message and wouldn't until he formulated some kind of theory as to what it and the Vulcan commander's fear meant. In case it was something more than Spock's prominent family at play, Kirk wanted to know exactly what to look for in Spock's reaction to the question.

Kirk said, "You don't know how worried I was about you after I got your father's transmission asking if I knew your whereabouts. That was months ago. There is no inconvenience, only abject relief. All right?"

Spock nodded. Kirk sensed that he'd overwhelmed him.

"I want to tell your family you're safe, but we can't get that kind of message out because of this star system's radiation. I also want to tell Starfleet about the battle, to take some political pressure off Vulcan, but again, I can't." Kirk sighed. "At least, I hope it takes some of the pressure off. Starfleet communications have grown strange. On and off, we're allowed only limited communications, for reasons that aren't clear."

Spock's head came up and his full attention came to bear. "That is unexpected."

"It is. The implications of it worry me. I worry that there are are too many colonist sympathizers close to or inside Starfleet and someone is trying to cut off their sources of information so they can't leak it. Or, that's the only rational explanation I can come up with that isn't some frightening power struggle within Starfleet. Even that wouldn't generate this kind of blackout. Information would still be accepted."

Spock fell thoughtful. 

Kirk ate ravenously, having skipped lunch. He paused and made himself slow down.

"I feel badly that I can't reassure your mother that you're at least away from the Militants."

"May I be of use? I would be pleased to assist with that."

"So many families worrying right now; be good to have one fewer. I'll see how Gall fares trying to get a message through once we are clear of this star. But I'm sure you can help."

Kirk set the tray aside and sat back on his bunk. He normally would check in with the second shift bridge in person. He pressed the comm stud and checked in verbally. They were tracking the probe and monitoring the progress on Wasp and Spitfire. Tico still had not communicated that they knew of. Nothing was happening that they could take action on. He made sure Scanner was remaining alert to watch for threats, told Gunner to watch as well.

Spock had Kirk's padd in his hands. He noticed Kirk's attention and set it aside. 

"You probably would like a scanner too," Kirk said with a smile. 

"I wish for my own, I admit. Which is perhaps not logical."

Kirk sat up. "Why not? It's on the ship right out there." He gestured with his thumb. "What kind of booby traps are on that ship you were on?"

"None." The very idea seemed to mystify Spock.

"Well." Kirk stood and pulled his uniform straight. "Don't let anyone in."

Kirk return an hour later after organizing a team from engineering to beam over to the Militant flagship and return with anything that looked useful, but made it clear nothing was to be powered up except inside a signal isolation box. He also ordered Long to continue making repairs so they could more easily escort the enemy ship to a base. When they were clear of the star, they could call for a tug, but that could take weeks.

Kirk returned from this duty and lounged on his bunk. "If you don't mind my asking, how did you manage to join the Militants?"

"A Vulcan who went through Discipline at the same time as myself, and with whom I had spoken on numerous occasions because we were both sons of powerful families, had approached me fourteen months before to see if I was motivated to join."

"So, you contacted him again."

"Correct. I thought it would be difficult to gain his trust, but I realized that despite being outliers on some dimensions of Vulcan society, the Militants are not outliers on others. They do not comprehend the ability to lie."

Kirk crossed his ankles, wished for a shot of something that would burn his throat, tried not to smile too much. "And you have no trouble with that."

"I have some difficulty due to heavy practice and a belief that the truth is a superior way. But I am capable of breaking that enculturation. Getting away from my father was the more difficult part of joining. From the time I had arranged to meet someone who would take me on from the Gatling Outpost-"

"The Gatling Outpost!?" Kirk sat up again. "That place is so rough the pirates avoid it. What was that like?"

"Quite anarchic in many ways but not in others."

"Such as?"

"Weapons are discouraged."

"Really?"

"No business could be conducted otherwise. The two altercations I could not avoid I won easily by physical strength. Otherwise, I stated that I was a Romulan seeking out an aunt who had asked me to meet her, and no one asked any other questions. That is how the Militants move about. No one expects Vulcans in the places they use for supply. And contrary to myth, there are a few pirates."

"I'm envious."

"You are envious of me?" Spock seemed to try and determine the truth of this.

"Yes. Must have been interesting."

"It was in unexpected ways. The outpost itself is barely functional, brooking no central authority. For example, there is no central life support functioning any longer, the ships that dock are expected to exchange air with the station and help maintain the livability of the whole. It is far more egalitarian than I imagined from a machinery perspective. On the other hand, for a Vulcan it is a barrage of illogical and wasteful depravity. I understood quickly how one must become inured to remain functional. Then I realized I am not special, I am not truly a follower of Surak, because I am capable of becoming inured."

Spock put his hands together, fingers interlocked, and looked at them. They were clenched hard enough to force the blood out around the knuckles.

Kirk stood up and switched bunks, careful to give Spock space. "All right if I sit beside you?"

"If you wish."

"I should phrase that as, will it help if I sit beside you?"

"I assume it will help you."

"It will. But I wasn't trying to help myself, your annoying philosophy about these things aside." Kirk settled back against the recessed latches and handles of the cabinets. "I long to undo every bad thing that's happened to you."

Spock continued to stare at his hands. "What about what has happened to you?" 

"I suppose I became inured a long time ago. I'm a lost cause."

"I do not evaluate that as true."

Kirk looked across at the cabinets and drawers above his own bunk. He never opened them because he had nothing to put in them.

"You were telling me about escaping your father."

"He attempted to block my transport off-planet. The family has widespread influence and I am certain that he brought it to bear. But he assumed I would hire with a private carrier, or a trader, who would be swayed by credits. I intentionally did not. I booked with the most public, reputable, comfortable cruiser, under my cousin's name. I folded his identity into my biometrics on the registration for transport."

"See how easy things are when people underestimate you?"

"Indeed. Something I continued to rely upon. Among the militants I pretended to have weak technical knowledge, accepting undesirable duty as a way of showing my loyalty and professing that my human half made me less technically skilled."

Kirk turned to him. "You. Pretended to be dimwitted? You?"

"Indeed."

"Maybe that's what I was seeing in Zuram, some kind of protective instinct. Is that possible?"

"I would doubt it. But I did manage to arrange to not have much expected of me."

"I'm glad to hear that. It cuts down on the things you'd be ordered to do that you'd regret later."

Spock nodded. "And I realized something. I discovered that I am much better than even very technically brilliant pure Vulcans at visualizing unprecedented possibilities. I did not realize that they never do this. They rely on brute force, not elegance and not even efficiency. On Vulcan, using what humans call creativity is never encouraged or taught outside of poetry and music, and even then barely encouraged. Technical lessons never include any way to take advantage of it. So, I had no way of realizing this."

"You were raised to measure up under a metric that doesn't apply to you."

Spock turned to him. "I believe you attempted to tell me that once before and I dismissed it as your lack of understanding. But you are correct."

Kirk flushed, felt his eyes getting damp. "As long as you understand it now."

Spock looked away. His face revealed that his thoughts had gone distant.

"You all right?"

Spock nodded. "I no longer feel I have gone through some of these events alone. It is illogical, but it is the case."

"I want to know everything that happened to you."

"Some of it I am not ready to remember let alone retell. You lament the moral state of your crewmates. I do indeed understand now how this undermines one's identity."

Kirk sighed. Held his hand out over Spock's arm until he got a nod. Patted Spock's arm.

Kirk said, "Speaking of which, I need to spend some time on the bridge, stay for the shift change like I normally do."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk did his rounds of the ship, found everything normal, the crew perhaps a bit standoff-ish. 

Engineering had returned from the Militant flagship and there were quite a few devices being sorted out in copper lined boxes on temporary work tables.

Kirk donned a static glove like Chief Long wore and looked through each box. He found the distinct, long-handled, foldable scanner in the last box and pulled it out. He tossed the glove down and said, "I'm checking this one out of inventory, indefinitely."

"We haven't logged that case yet. It's slow going. We don't know what much of it is."

Kirk considered bringing Spock down to assist, but wanted to let him recover in peace a little longer. "Pack up what you can't figure out. We can look through it when the expertise is available."

She nodded.

Jones followed Kirk out of engineering. Kirk turned the corner and stopped at the lift where they would be out of earshot.

"Something I can do for you, Jones?"

"Yes, sir. It's Mouse, sir."

"What about Mouse?"

"She's very down, sir. Perhaps you can speak to her. She's in our cabin. Hasn't been on duty since what happened in security."

Kirk berated himself for not even thinking of that. "Of course. Why don't you accompany me."

"Let me check out with the chief, sir."

She hurried away, returned seconds later at a run, and hit the lift switch at full force. 

Ah, youth, Kirk thought.

"Mouse?" Jones said into the dim cabin interior. "It's Jonesy."

Mouse stepped into the light from the passageway, saw Kirk, and dipped to the side.

"Go in, sir." Jones said with impatience.

Kirk brought the lights up on the way in. Crewmember Darana blinked as if she'd been in the dark for hours.

The door slid closed. Jones hadn't remained, which Kirk hadn't expected.

"Mind if I have a seat?'' Kirk said.

Darana waved a hand half heartedly at the pulled out chair beside the pulled out table, hoisted herself onto the chair opposite. 

"I'm not sure what aspect of the events in security are bothering you," Kirk said. "Perhaps you can help me out so I can help you out."

There was a long silence. Kirk looked around at the personal items. The crew had clips which turned the latches into secure hooks for hanging things. Over the bed was a painting with myriad clean little dots in white and brown and orange on graduated red like a sunset with swirls reassembling the milky way both as seen from earth and then overlaid with what it must look like from a neighboring galaxy. Kirk realized that he knew next to nothing about his crew.

"I should have done something," Darana said. "That's the bother."

"You did do something. You alerted me."

She didn't react to this. Kirk wondered if he sounded dismissive.

She had her small hands bunched together. "I could have gotten in the way. I was scared to."

Kirk tried to sound sympathetic, but he was having trouble. "It's not your job to get in the way of security. That's my job." 

When she didn't reply, Kirk went on, "We have job distinctions on the ship for a reason. Not everyone can do every job. And more importantly we don't want them to. I wouldn't put Chief Long at helm. That would be a disaster."

Her lips crooked slightly into a sad smile.

"If you are sitting here feeling badly because you didn't step in front of a phaser . . ." 

Kirk tried to reframe this in a way he could make headway, understand her point of view. But he had nothing to start from. Except a painting that was oddly dreamy and precise at the same time. 

"As your commander I would never had expected you to do more than you did. That has to count for something? Doesn't it?"

She nodded, continued to stare at the tabletop. She seemed to get lost in her own thoughts, or maybe that was just his impression. She was a fast track crewmember, with average to slightly above average performance reviews, although he wasn't certain there wasn't some protectiveness going on. He didn't care if there was, on the margins, teamwork was more important than individual skill. And at the moment, faced with too many Yarrows on his crew, he would take a few more Daranas. The mess would certainly be quieter after second shift. 

What he would prefer is each crewmember be a better balance. He was working with extremes.

Darana said, "I should have. Done. Something."

Kirk turned in his seat, put his hands flat on the table. "All right, let's go with that. How does that play out?"

She looked up. 

"You don't do that instead of contacting me, right? The comm panel is burned out. That takes time. You have to do that first, agreed?"

"Maybe. They went cruel, fast."

Kirk bit his lips. "I'll admit, I haven't looked at the tape yet. So in my reconstructed scenario, I don't know what you are facing."

"Jonesy said the Vulcan's a friend of yours."

"He is. A good one. Honestly, that's why I haven't been in a hurry to look at the tape. Which is a failure on my part. But he's recovered. Vulcans are good at that. But let's continue. You signal the bridge and then you bodily intervene with the Chief of Security. And he's going to put you aside. Hopefully gently."

"But it would stop him."

"I doubt it. They didn't think anything of you being there to start with."

"No one notices me."

"I think they didn't care, which speaks worse of the culture in that department. That means you couldn't have done anything but delay. Or worse yet, if they were in a violent mood, they might have worried you'd speak up and tried to stop you from speaking up, ever. That's what limiting your actions to those you are explicitly qualified for is intended to avoid, crew getting hurt for no reason."

She sat up straight, grew a little angry. "It wouldn't be for no reason. I wouldn't feel terribly now."

Kirk took his time replying. "When I think I've screwed up, I look for ways to make it up. Face up to it, make up to it. There's nothing else to be done."

She made an odd face. "I can't make up to it sitting in here."

"Not easily."

"You haven't screwed up before, have you sir?"

"Yes, many times. And I will again."

There was a long pause. "Really?"

"Do I look perfect? I'm in charge of this ship and look what is going on in security. That is my screw up. I didn't address the culture of that department. That's my screw up. The last thing I want is someone else getting hurt because I screwed up. Imagine how I'd feel?" He tapped his hand into his other palm. "You did exactly as I would want you to do. Exactly."

She stared at the table for a few moments. "Okay."

Kirk blinked. "We're good then?"

"Better."

Kirk picked up the scanner off the table and stood up. "Good. And I regret not checking how you were doing or taking the time to commend you on your actions. See? I'm still making mistakes."

"Everyone said you were new at this, sir. When you first came on board."

"I still am."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk stopped by his quarters on his way back to the bridge. He felt a pleasant anticipation as he thumbed open the door. He hadn't been in a position to make anyone truly happy for far too long. 

Spock looked up from the padd. His eyes fell upon the scanner and he sat forward and dropped his feet on the floor. His face softened, became child-like.

"Here," Kirk said.

Spock held the scanner in both hands as if it were fragile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'll be back in a few hours."


	24. Saving What Can be Saved

"Commander Ashe wishes to speak to you, Captain."

"In private? Otherwise, put him on screen."

Ashe's worn face came on the screen larger than life. "Kirk. Repairs have suffered setbacks here. They are going better on the Rum Runner, but not on my old Wasp. Tempted to move the crew over to the alien vessel and jump ship."

Kirk smiled. "If you can figure out the Starfleet paperwork for that, Commander, I'll be most impressed."

Ashe chuckled. Fell serious. "No word from Tico?"

"No, but Comm tells me the background radiation is going to cut out most anything not on a tight beam aimed right at us. We sent ahead a probe as a relay just in case Tico broadcasts something. Are you in a secure orbit?"

"No, we actually aren't. But we have a hundred hours before it dangerously degrades."

\-------- 8888 --------

Spock lay on his bunk, blinking eyes focused beyond the ceiling, appearing to meditate. Kirk got ready for bed and dropped onto his pillow. The sense of calm he got from being there was like a drug. He didn't want to speak, or sleep, just bask in it. He lay awake a long time doing just that.

"I believe I misunderstood," Spock said.

"You all right?"

"I am uncertain."

Kirk sat up and shifted to sit on Spock's bunk. Kirk felt agitation rather than calm being closer inside Spock's telepathic aura. 

"Can I touch you?" Just saying those words made Kirk's body come alive.

"Please."

This was new. A sense of anxiety rose up in Kirk. He wasn't sure if it was his own or not. He carefully put his hand on Spock's bare wrist, avoiding his hand. His underarm skin was soft and fever warm.

The long-sleeved robe Spock wore fit loosely. Kirk slid his hand up Spock's wrist to hold his bare forearm. It felt too natural to continue. Kirk held still.

Kirk said, "Bad memories?"

"Not precisely."

Kirk didn't believe him, worried exactly how he was burying the emotional injury in his complex Vulcan head. Kirk remembered that feeling of being used as a bulwark once, a long time ago. He wanted to be Spock's bulwark again.

Kirk sat bent over for a long time, letting his hand become hot. 

Spock turned his head away. His voice came out of the darkness. "I misunderstood."

Kirk squeezed Spock's arm, resisted caressing it with great effort. "How so?" 

"I misunderstood why you had me placed in your quarters."

"I really did it because it's the only lock that can't be overridden by security."

Spock's voice sounded richer than normal reflecting off the bulkhead. "I understand now."

Kirk tried to adopt Spock's manner of speaking. "I've deemed it inappropriate to finish what I strongly implied I would next time we met, if we were to meet again. And here we are, and I'm not. I have a feeling that's what's upset you. But I'm not certain."

Spock's arm twitched. Kirk felt a yearning to be touched in his gut that wasn't his own. The need had a shape and depth that startled him.

Kirk said, "Right now, you're relying on me too much. For your safety. For your transportation home. Even if you seem to have recovered this quickly from what happened, that still concerns me. If you were fully human, you'd be unacceptably vulnerable right now from that experience."

Spock remained still. Kirk could sense him thinking. Kirk's eyes were starting to adapt to the low light. He reached out with his other hand and brushed Spock's bangs back from his temple. Spock's profile looked like a Roman statue.

A minute later, Spock said, "I understand."

Kirk leaned down and pressed his lips where Spock's temple formed a hollow between his eye and his hair. He could feel the electric effect of this on his own skin as if someone had done the gesture to him, except he'd never experienced such an acute release from loneliness in his life.

Kirk wondered if he was in over his head already. But he always seemed to be, and was still alive and still in the fight.

"I'm glad you understand," Kirk whispered into one pointed ear. "Because I'm weakening."

If he didn't let go right now, he wasn't going to. The need was tugging at him, pulling him down. He had to gather his willpower to make himself slide his hand out of Spock's sleeve. Sitting up was another conscious action. Spock turned onto his back and looked up at him, seeming to observe this process of self control. 

Spock said, "If it is unwise, then it is unwise."

"Thank you." Kirk laughed lightly. "I better not touch you often. That's all I can say."

Kirk crawled back into his own bed and found his mind considerably clearer even as his heart raced. He could sense Spock there in the darkness, same as he had on Wolfram. It felt like the most obvious thing in the universe that Spock would be right there, close enough to touch, not half a Federation away.

\-------- 8888 --------

The door chimed and Kirk opened it to let Riley in. 

"Sorry to bother you, sir." He seemed to be trying to not look around.

"It's really not a problem. What is it?"

"Yarrow's the problem. He and Glissen got in a fight."

"I'll take care of it." Kirk went to the head and rolled the door open a crack. "I'm locking the door to security level one. Keep it locked."

Spock opened the door the rest of the way. "Acknowledged." He glanced past Kirk at Riley and nodded in greeting.

In the corridor, Riley said, "I apologize again. I probably should have just handled it."

Kirk stopped where they were alone and bodily cut him off. "Firstly, if you are saying that because you think this ship might not be my highest priority, let me disabuse you of that idea. If you need me for something, even if you aren't certain you need me for something, call me." 

Kirk made a conscious decision to connect with his first at a more personal level by sharing something he wouldn't otherwise. "Secondly, nothing is going on. I'm returning the ambassador's son to him in the finest shape I can: healed, mentally recovered from his ordeals, and virginal."

Riley tried not to smile as they started walking again, so he ended up smirking. "I'm impressed."

Kirk muttered, "It's already tougher than I thought it would be."

Down in security, they found Glissen holding a phaser on Yarrow, who sat on the floor against the wall between the cells. He was bleeding from a cut above his eye and had been wiping it on his sleeve. It was smeared over the side of his face. The prisoners were all at the fields watching. 

Glissen said, "I wanted your permission to throw him in the brig."

Kirk held out his hand to her. "Give me the phaser."

A look of fear crossed Yarrow's face. 

Kirk said, "You don't trust anyone, Yarrow. Why is that?" He unfolded a seat from the wall and sat down, leaning forward, facing his officer from across the room. "Hard to trust others if you don't trust yourself. Sort of makes sense not to. Really."

Riley took up a position on Yarrow's left. Security's other two ensigns shuffled in behind Glissen along with some of the regular security crew. The ensigns rested their hands on their phasers, still hooked to their belts. Kirk didn't mind an audience for what he needed to say. 

"For the record, Glissen, you could have brigged him without my authorization. Throw him in with whomever you like. I'll be more explicit next time."

"Yes, sir."

"Yarrow," Kirk began. "You have more options than you seem to realize. And I wish you'd realize that before it's too late."

Kirk lowered the phaser and pointed it at a spot halfway between them. He checked that it was on low power and found it on the heaviest stun setting. He wondered if that was standard on his ship. Heavy stun could kill some races. 

Kirk waited for Yarrow to look up at him, then returned to adjusting the phaser in his hand. "Lieutenant, you have a clear choice. You can define yourself by what you are working toward and what you hope to be. Or you can define yourself by what you deride, by constantly reassuring yourself that you are better than whatever that is. In that case you end up defining yourself solely based on what you are not. Do you see how much that limits you?"

Yarrow's eyes narrowed. "I don't need a speech."

"Too bad, because you are getting one anyway." He switched the phaser to normal stun and lowered it again. "Isn't there anything you want to be?"

"I want to be right."

"That's interesting. How did you go so wrong, in that case?"

"I didn't. Vulcans don't have any value."

"Why bother expending the energy in that case? Do you know why we succeeded in finding the Militants?" Kirk looked over at Zuram, locked eyes with him and continued speaking. "Because we had a spy in their ranks, risking his life to contact us, telling us of this opportunity. Disabling the flagship from escaping."

Kirk went on. "And you punished that being. For no reason. So you were wrong, despite trying to be right."

The Vulcan prisoners turned to each other. Yarrow glanced around at them.

Kirk said. "Yarrow, you are defining yourself by what you have power over, but you have no power over yourself. That's where real power is. The power to look to a future where you have grown into something more. Not where you are now, looking forward only to the next chance to demonstrate how you are not like some Other. That's it. That's all you have to look forward to. You cannot grow unless you can criticize yourself and improve on a brutal, honest, ongoing self-assessment. But your self-image is so weak, that you are too terrified to do that."

"That's bullshit."

"So, what are you growing toward, Yarrow? I'd like to hear."

"You don't care."

"You keep projecting yourself onto others. It's quite telling."

Yarrow gestured at the cells around him. "This is a fight, don't pretend it's not."

Kirk stood. "We're out here fighting, risking our lives, for the very thing you are trying to destroy. If we don't stand for something then we have no legitimate reason to be out here." He gestured with the phaser. "Put him in a cell."

Posture belligerent, Yarrow allowed himself to be backed bodily into the cell containing the two rebel colonists. The forcefield came up with a sizzle.

Glissen followed Kirk out of security. "Sir?"

Kirk stopped. He was feeling a little better about her today, but just a hair's breadth better.

"I've been thinking that I would like a chance to apologize to our prisoner, or guest, in person."

"I don't know if I want to subject him to that. But I'll ask him."

"Is he really. In your quarters, sir?"

"Yes. My cabin sleeps 4. Twelve if we needed to hot rack. Your point is?"

"I see, sir." Her face reset to uncertain. "As well, I was wondering if we were doing better."

Kirk adjusted his shoulders, glanced down the passageway. He had to give some ground. It was true the prisoners seemed well enough treated now. 

"Perhaps. Yes. Seems better. But there is a bigger picture here, Glissen. I understand what you do is dangerous, and I understand that builds a camaraderie that is extreme even among Starfleet personnel. And I don't expect you to put yourselves at undo risk, but there is a very wide gap between that and your current procedures. I could fly the entire fleet through that gap. Close it up." Kirk turned, then turned back. "For example, make it standard for the phasers to be on medium stun, unless you are facing a race that cannot be felled by that."

"Will do, sir."

She seemed down, but she deserved to be for a while more. He'd have to find more reasons to praise them, for even minimal improvement, even as much as it turned his stomach to do so.

"I'll see about a face to face apology."

She didn't meet his gaze. "Yes, sir."

Kirk went to the bridge. He was feeling surly again and made himself calmer before emerging from the lift. He nodded to Lt. Doyle who currently had the conn, and took the center chair. 

There wasn't enough going on to distract him from the unsolvable two problems they had, and they couldn't risk running drills. This was the quiet that drove you mad. 

Kirk's mind flitted through the tools he had at his disposal and the problems he faced. He hit the comm switch for engineering. "Chief Long, does that enemy flagship we're pacing have any kind of tractor beam?"

"You're asking the wrong person, Commander."

Kirk paused. "You're right, I am." He hit the switch and pushed to his feet. "Doyle take the conn again for a time."

The door to Kirks' quarters swished open. Spock sat on the bunk in his usual position.

"You wanted to be useful."

"I do." Spock sat forward.

"That ship you were on was a converted cargo cruiser. What kind of tractor beam power does it have? Sufficient to tow a ship the size of the Ranger?"

"Yes."

"Stay here."

He found Long in engineering. "Status on repairing the captured ship's engines?"

She looked at him strangely. "I have four crewmembers on it. We have repairs here on the Ranger as well that need completing."

"We'll likely need that ship to tow the Wasp away from the Supergiant."

"We have been consulting on Wasp's repairs. They have a lot of marginal circuits that are in a slow failure cascade." She sounded vaguely superior, which didn't bother Kirk, as he like having an engineer who had everything on the line.

Kirk said, "Aside from critical systems on the Ranger, I want all effort put into getting the captured ship operational. I'm going to give you a consultant as well. When you are ready to beam over with a larger team, page me. I'll bring him down."

Back in his quarters, Kirk said, "I hope you really are ready to be useful because you are badly needed. We need to get-- What is that ship's name, by the way? The one you were on."

"D'riuqn"

"And that means?"

"It is a kind of rock lizard."

"The VS Lizard it is, then. We need to get the Lizard operational in case Wasp's situation degrades farther. Spitfire can rescue the personnel, but we can't afford to lose a ship."

Spock stood up. 

Kirk said, "I could give you a pep talk, but I think you've got it covered. I'll escort you over, make sure you're set and safe before leaving you there. Engineering isn't security, even if the uniforms are similar, but anything is possible. Most of engineering's tools could be used as a weapon."

\-------- 8888 --------

When the transporter released the second party, everyone turned to Spock, whose brown robes seemed less strange in this environment than on the Ranger. They were all wearing supplemental oxygen as the already low-oxygen atmosphere hadn't been refreshed since the power was diverted.

"Task list," Long said. "We need to rebuild the black body radiators and the primary exchanger, install some monitors for interfaces in Standard. What else?"

Spock said, "I need to repair the sabotage to the warp drive."

"Yes, repair sabotage," Long said as if writing a grocery list.

"We only need impulse to rescue the Wasp," Kirk said.

"Interfaces are first priority, in that case," Long said.

Kirk followed Spock to the ladders and up into the rear half disk of the ship. Everything seemed unfinished, weld seams stood out, handles and handrails were bare metal strapping.

Spock came to a control room in the middle of the central corridor and powered up a series of panels.

"I did not officially work on these, so it will take me some time to figure out what your engineering Chief needs for the interfaces."

Kirk sat down on a stool and swiveled, looked around at the inset panels. This ship had attacked Starbase 3, but it felt neutral. It was just a ship, like a bot was just a collection of rods and actuators until it was executing instructions with bad intent.

Kirk kept Spock company for half an hour. 

"I'm going to leave you with an escort. Stay with your escort, please."

Kirk went forward and found crewmember Darana, whom he had insisted Long bring along. She was watching Chief Long work. Kirk pulled her away and led the way up the ladders. He held out a communicator rigged with an emergency stud. 

"I am assigning you as Spock's escort."

"Sir?"

"He's a civilian and is required to have one at all times. The red stud will send an emergency signal. Press that if anything at all happens. All right?"

She appeared calmly determined, put the communicator on her already crowded utility belt. "Yes, sir."

Kirk was on the bridge when engineering checked in from the Lizard. The first shift helm and navigational officers had gone over hours earlier for training.

Long said, "We are going to make a few test runs, sir. We'll head away from Ranger to avoid problems."

There was a long delay. The ship moved but canted. Slowed. Leveled but pitched the next time it accelerated.

Kirk waited patiently through endless botched maneuvers until the end of the next shift when his own bridge got reserve crew at nav and helm. Fortunately the Ranger was sitting still, but they could be called upon at any time to perform.

Kirk beamed over to the Lizard. Found a great deal of stress. Jones and Fairfeather were bent over a console, Jones clutching her hair.

She looked up at Kirk. "It's too complicated, sir. It requires that we do an awful lot of math in our heads. Math the computer should be doing."

Kirk looked over her shoulder at the interface. It looked as sparse as the ship's interior fit and finish. He looked to Spock.

Spock said, "It is a highly reliable link-in, a direct translation of the ship's original interface. It would require weeks to tap into the myriad systems required to compile something with more automation."

"Not including the software to drive it," Kirk said, he tapped his knuckles on a powered down side panel. "There is no way this ship, as is, can be flown into a tight maneuvering situation like getting closer to that star."

Kirk flipped open his communicator. "Comm, ask Commander Yabe what Wasp's status is."

"Yabe, sir?"

"Yes. She'll give us a straight answer."

There were a few crooked smiles.

There was a delay. "Yabe says the Wasp seems hopeless to her, Sir. Wasp has about eighty one hours before the orbit decays too far to recover. Less time if more issues appear and they have to cut power again."

Kirk rubbed his chin, glanced around the consoles with their Starfleet excess property monitors creating a glow in the underpowered gloom. He pushed off the edge of the console and paced, weighing options. He couldn't solve all of these problems. Something had to give so he could save what could be saved.

"James?" Spock said. 

Everyone's heads came around at his first name. Kirk held back a smile at their strange surprise, and sobered when he realized that his silence was making his engineering crew nervous. Nervous enough that Spock noticed it.

Kirk said, "We have to follow Tico. Get to where we can communicate with her." He kept his voice friendly, turned to Chief Long. "Can we get this ship in shape for deep space? Less to run into, especially in this part of the galaxy."

"So, we're giving up?"

"I don't want to risk this ship to the endeavor of trying to trying to rescue mere equipment, let alone risk lives to it. The odds of success are low and the price too high. The Wasp is valuable, but so is this ship. Spock, what's this ship's top speed?"

"Top, but not sustainable would be warp nine point three."

"Oh, Jesus," someone said as most bent or turned away in surprise.

Spock went on as if no one had spoken. "It will sustain eight point eight."

Long said, "We can get her ready for deep space, sir. That's easier. Docking and establishing orbit may be an issue. But hopefully whoever is flying her is accustomed to the controls by then."

"Also work on documentation. We will be leaving what is certain to be excess crew on the Spitfire to pilot her out of here."

\-------- 8888 --------

Ashe was intransigent and he still outranked Kirk.

Kirk was in his quarters, which were empty besides him. "As the mission commander, I'd like to order you out of there now, so that I know Spitfire got out safely. We can't delay here longer. Something happened to Tico and not something good."

Ashe said, "I, personally, have to wait until we have no choice. Yabe says she's confident in their model of the radiation bursts now. We'll get bodies out of here, ship or not."

"I'm leaving you the VS Lizard as well. We don't have enough crew to pilot her and you are going to have extra."

"We get two prizes! I'll enjoy flying those into base, Kirk. Almost makes it worth it. Well, not really, but it helps."

Kirk checked in with the bridge, checked in with his engineering crew. They had a few more hours of work before they could leave the ship to the next crew who wouldn't have Spock to assist.

Kirk put his head down on his pillow, uniform intact. He'd lost track of the shift they were on, which usually meant he'd missed out on sleeping.

The room held the faint scent of hot desert wind and alien musk. Kirk closed his eyes and breathed it in. It took him somewhere else, but not as far away as before. 

As long as they were out here on this mission, going from one fight to the next, he could keep Spock beside him. He breathed in again. He didn't feel that alien calm, but he did feel good.


	25. Repairs, Part 1

They were finally warping away from Y-9032b. Kirk didn't like abandoning the Spitfire to Ashe's stubbornness, but he and Yabe were both outranked.

"Comm, let me know when you contact a relay and keep trying to get a connection to Tico. I realize that's difficult given that we don't know her location." Kirk decided to just explain that he understood the limitations of a task, rather than wait for extra justifications.

"Yes, sir."

Chief Long came to the bridge. She gave him her reports and said, "I feel my department has failed you, sir."

Kirk looked up from what he'd been handed. "Not in the least. It's a month or more worth of effort, not a few hours." Kirk looked into her lined face. "Neither of us likes admitting defeat, Loangrath. But we have duties we are neglecting and those duties involve other lives. We have to move on." This sounded good, but Kirk was preaching to himself too. It irked him to turn away from a plan with potential.

Long said, "If you could get me a few more Vulcans, I could transform my department."

"I'm afraid the others in the brig will not do you much good. Not very human-friendly."

"Spock seems to be."

"Spock is accustomed to humans, or one human, at least."

The bridge crew were sneaking glances back at them.

"You sir?"

Kirk lowered his brows. "I was referring to Spock's mother. Lovely woman."

"You've met her?"

"Yes. She has the best tea cakes." Kirk handed the signed reports back. "I'd kill for one of her tea cakes about now."

The glances back were amused now. Apparently this was the correct way to handle this issue.

Two hours later, Gall reported that the nearest Federation relay had responded to a ping, but that she could not get it to accept their summary report.

Kirk stood up and came behind her. He was acutely aware of his own posture now and remained relaxed, one hand behind his back, fingers loose.

Gall said, "Pretty sure I'm sending this transmission properly, sir."

"Too much noise still? Can I see it?"

She pulled up the raw data. 

"Its not rejecting the header," Kirk said.

"No sir. Just the main packet data. It's like it identifies us and shuts down the connection. There is no handshake response, no encoding schemes, no checksums, no terminate."

"Stop trying to send. Let's think about this."

Kirk turned around and found the rest of the bridge crew watching him, faces worried and achingly hopeful. 

"Before anyone asks, no I can't think of a positive reason for this development. Helm once we pick up our probe, take us 121 mark 3. Let's change vector unexpectedly. Gall, you have Wasp's radio id from one of their transmissions, correct?"

"Of course, sir."

"Can we pretend to be Wasp?"

"It's hardwired into the equipment, and highly against regs, sir."

"Rejecting our transmissions is highly against procedure."

She hesitated. "True, sir."

"We have at least two spare subspace radios. Have engineering rig one to look like Wasp and we'll try transmitting again when we get a little farther away from our previous location along the new course."

Gall said, "You want to know if we're being singled out, sir?"

"Yes, and Wasp isn't going to be sending anything. So there is no risk of confusion." He went back to the center seat. "We've been in a radio blind spot, maybe a broadcast went out to all ships. Maybe we missed something that would explain it. But Starfleet or not, we have a job and that's figuring out what happened to Tico."

When Kirk left shift, Gall left at the same time, followed him to the officer's deck.

Kirk waited with her until the passageway cleared.

"Are there any private relays we can reach?" Kirk asked.

"Funny you should mention that, sir. You wanted to try and send a message to your mystery correspondent and I wonder if we could use that same technique to get a report closer to Starfleet HQ."

"That's an excellent idea. Except for the security issues."

"I can send a doubly encrypted message that at worst is thrown away at the wrong receiver. The message isn't long enough to decrypt by brute force. I'm thinking of sending a strongly encrypted message into a private relay enveloped in weak encryption that will be decrypted down the line and possibly redirected where it needs to go when the system cleans out the orphaned messages."

"Then give it a try. Send our report to Commodores Stone and Mendez first. Command SF second.

"Yes, sir." She sounded grim. "What's going on, sir?"

"I don't know." He almost said more. He almost said that someone seemed to really want a war with Vulcan. But he worried that he was in earshot of Spock in the nearby cabin.

Kirk touched Gall on the elbow. "We may be glad we were out here. Away from whatever is going on."

She nodded, head down.

Kirk said, "As to our mystery receiver, send this message: have son, unharmed."

She looked up sharply, glanced toward his quarters. "Oh."

Kirk gave her a small smile. She nodded and walked slowly away, attention on her padd.

Spock stood up when Kirk entered his quarters. 

"May I be of use?" Spock asked.

"Yes, but let me think about how. In the meantime, I'm behind on reports, my department heads are starting to deliver them to me in person. This after I gave them lessons in report writing."

Kirk switched his bunk out for the desk and chair and pulled up the monitor. It was a luxury to only have reports to worry about.

The comm whistled and reported that the Tico was issuing a distress call on multiple subspace channels and had been repeatedly for days. They were limping back toward Ranger's position, badly damaged. Kirk took the connection on his monitor, ignoring that a civilian was sitting across from him. The connection came up slowly, stabilizing only reluctantly.

"Kirk here, Captain Seyburn, what can we do for you?"

"We need your location, you're the closest ship." Seyburn gave their coordinates and trajectory. "We can't get a message through to command, even on the emergency channel." 

The connection went out. 

Kirk switched to the bridge and told them to change course to intercept the current transmission. 

He waited thirty seconds for the helm to adjust, then asked, "What's our ETA?"

"Thirty six point one hours, sir."

"Ask Long if we can safely eek out another tenth of a warp. Better to arrive intact, but maybe we have a little safety margin to spare."

Kirk sat thinking, staring at Spock. "Speaking of hacks," Kirk said. But the connection to the Tico reestablished.

Kirk said, "We're en route, Captain. Can you hold on thirty six hours?"

"We'll try our best."

Kirk wanted to point out that the Ranger wasn't a repair ship, but that would only unnecessarily strain Seyburn. Kirk reassured him instead that they would meet soon and signed off, promising to update on their position in twelve hours.

Kirk stared at Spock again, rubbed his chin. He paged Rand.

She arrived at the door, padd under one arm.

Kirk stood. "Come in Yeoman. You are considered the mistress of paperwork on this ship. I have need of some paperwork magic. How familiar are you with the filing to become a private contractor?"

"Somewhat. Shall I pull it up?"

"Do so."

While she tapped on the screen, she said, "Who is the application for?"

"Spock."

She paused. Sighed. "I don't believe even I can make that work, sir. But I have the form. Line one: Earth ID Code." She put the padd back under her arm.

Spock recited a number-letter code.

She stared at him, raised the padd and tapped that out, read through the rest of the form, filling in as Spock replied.

"Sir, I can copy in the typical engineering contractor language. Covers the job description and all the reasons a contractor is necessary. Lack of in-house talent. Distance from base. Cost reasons, etc."

She tapped away. Held the padd out for Spock to sign, then for Kirk.

"That's it, sir. Anything else?"

"Make a copy of the application along with a record of attempted transmission on a separate tape. I might need it."

When she was gone, Spock said, "You are the quintessential optimist."

"It's a war. We're short on skilled personnel. The application isn't allowed to ask about race. You have a clean earth ID. If we can establish a connection, I think the application will go through and no one will be the wiser. I like having you around and intend to keep you around as long as possible." Kirk tilted his head. "As long as you are happy to be here."

"I am quite pleased to be here."

Kirk put his paperwork aside and sat back. "Not as pleased as I am to have you."

Spock raised a brow. "I estimate that as highly unlikely."

"An estimate without any numbers?" Kirk smiled. "Estimates about emotions. Tsk. Tsk." 

Teasing Spock was a bad idea. It made Kirk's desire rise. He pulled his reports back under his nose until he finished the essential ones. 

The feeds were quiet and contained only a few ship comments mired in code words he did not know. Next shift, he'd have to ask Gall if she knew what some of it meant. He could sleep, but he didn't feel like sleeping. He put his feet up on Spock's bunk and interlocked his hands behind his head. He felt comfortable yet energized.

Kirk said to the ceiling, "I worry what you might have been forced to do to maintain your cover."

Spock looked down. "May I ask why you are asking?"

"I'd ask if you were my crewman. That's why I'm asking."

Spock's left brow twitched. His expression became distant. "I was forced to kill and eat some of an animal called a granlatee, that is a half amphibian native of Tellar and sold alive at the supply ports we frequented. It is a hardy creature with a great deal of meat on it."

"That bother you?"

"Not terribly."

"But that bothers you, I suspect."

"Indeed."

Kirk said, "Killing animals isn't what I'm worried about."

Spock looked down. He put his scanner aside and loosely clasped his hands. He looked smaller in that posture.

"Killing was reserved for the elite among the Outliers who could do so without succumbing to a bloodlust as a result. They had to be careful. Fortunately. For my sake." Spock swallowed hard. "Eventually, I would have been called upon. But standing by while death is being doled out--"

Kirk waited more than a minute. 

Kirk finally said, "It's like wading through a swamp. You cannot keep the stinking muck out of your boots. The best you can do is leap from soggy hillock to soggy hillock and not slip in and drown."

After a time, Spock nodded. "An apt analogy. I still feel the muck on me at times."

Kirk let the sympathetic affection he felt come out through his voice. "You will for a while, I'm afraid. What you did was brave. Not just anyone can do what you did. The personal cost is extremely high, no matter the outcome. You have to die a little inside watching something terrible happen that you cannot stop. You would have sacrificed yourself for no gain, but knowing that doesn't reduce the internal damage it causes."

"I am relieved to hear to speak so." Spock stared at his fingers. "I cannot understand. Why kill if there is an option? It cannot be argued to be logical. When we met on Wolfram Thesus 5, I was fascinated by your experience with death, now I am appalled by any association with it."

"I'm glad to hear that."

Spock looked up. "To be honest, James, you are not so different in your willingness to kill if the reason and need is compelling."

"That's brutal, Spock."

"Perhaps my assessment is colored by stress."

"I'm surprised you want me to touch you at all." Kirk regretted saying this immediately. His own stung ego was talking for him.

Spock tipped his head to the side thoughtfully. "I have divided my mind in the last few months. I can hold many viewpoints at the same time, contradictory ones, which is not something I tended to do previously. I can see the horror of your penchant for violence but also deeply appreciate it given that I am relying on you for protection. It is disturbing how much the broader reality can be lacking in logical absolutes. I believed peace came from naiveté about violence. I think now I was grossly mistaken."

Kirk said, "Peace is an agreement between mature people who fully understand the costs of violence."

Spock nodded. "Perhaps. Yes."

"Is this conversation helping you or not? I can't tell."

"I don't know. I should perhaps meditate."

Kirk pushed off the wall and stood. "I'll go check in with my second shift and stay on through the first split shift. That will give you about seven hours alone. Will that be enough?"

"You need not be away that long, I only require three hours or so."

"That's pretty efficient meditation."

"Indeed. Previously, I rarely meditated in lieu of sleep. But it is distinctly human to sleep every rest period, so among the Outliers I forced myself to adapt in an attempt to not stand out. It was difficult at first, but my meditation has significantly improved."

"You never know what you can do until you have no choice but to do it."

Spock nodded. He seemed emotionally fatigued. 

Kirk said, "Let me know if you need anything at all. You can push the stud to talk to Comm who will pass a message on. That way you don't have to page the whole ship."

"Understood."

On the bridge the second shift Comm said that engineering had the masked subspace transmitter in place.

Kirk said, "First, try sending the paperwork that contains no location data."

Comm worked at his board for a time. "Transmission complete, sir."

Kirk leaned over the board. "Strip the location data off the summary report of our action at Y-9032b."

"That doesn't leave much, sir."

"Try it anyway. Leave a marker where you took the coordinates and star systems off so it's clearly censored in case anyone does get it."

Comm worked for a time. "That went through as well."

"So, we don't know if its location data that's blocked or our transmitter that's blocked. Either way, I'm glad we got something through." He stood straight. "The Militants aren't nearly the threat they were before and the Federation needs to know that."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk triggered the door to his quarters.

"We're approaching the rendezvous with Tico."

"May I be of use?"

"Yes, you may."

Spock raised a brow and stood up.

Kirk had a uniform over his arm. He held up the red shirt. "Put that on. Fortunately your are thin, taking in an abandoned uniform is easier than the opposite."

Spock accepted the shirt and held it out, stunned. "I am to wear this?"

"It's not a real uniform. The insignia's removed. It's just a red shirt . . . that happens to look like a uniform."

Spock slipped out of his brown robe and into the pants and shirt. Kirk wondered if he should be feeding Spock a lot more or if he was always so thin. 

Kirk tugged on the hem of Spock's shirt and only after doing so realized how overly familiar the gesture was. He spoke to cover for it. "It could have been taken in more. But it looks okay. Welcome aboard, Spock." He forced his smile to convert to serious. "I'm sending you with Chief Long and her team to the Tico. I will be escorting you until I'm certain there won't be any trouble."

Kirk tugged on the shoulder seams of the shirt. Spock looked right in that outfit. 

"Ready for this?" Kirk said.

"What are my duties?"

"Doing what people tell you to do. And if you think you can't do it, simply stating that so it gets assigned to someone else. And following my instructions about your safety. To the letter. Understood?"

"Yes, James."

Kirk glanced up.

Sounding slightly amused, Spock said, "Would you prefer I not use your name?"

"I don't know. It was pretty funny last time you did that. Ship commanders are mythical creatures that lack real lives and familiar names."

"I feel odd using your rank when I am not one of your crew."

"Other civilians would use it. On the Tico, best use rank with everyone. Here in my quarters it doesn't matter what you call me." Kirk put his hands at his sides and stood straight. "Ready?"

"You asked that already."

"You didn't answer."

"Yes, I am ready."

Kirk looked him over. Spock's ears were not something that could be hidden. "This is going to be interesting."


	26. Repairs, Part 2

The engineering team materialized in the Tico transporter room. Kirk had warned Seyburn he was bringing a half-Vulcan contractor aboard to help with repairs and Seyburn was there to greet them along with his XO and CMO. He shook Kirk's hand, eyes on Spock.

Kirk casually said, "I have his paperwork if you need it."

"I might at that. But let's get to the damage. We're at a full halt because we couldn't risk more strain. We're lucky we didn't blow the engines and crack apart."

They toured the damage, which was extensive, hull breaches sealed with foam which turned red where it was exposed to oxygen to make it easier to check for weak seams on the outside, critical equipment blackened and raided for parts. The Tico's crew stopped and turned and watched Spock, who was always kept in the middle of the group. Kirk was pleased with his own crew's completely ignoring this behavior. 

Chief Long and the Tico chief engineer conferred and began assigning personnel. Tico's engineering crew looked hang tired and shell shocked, beyond even gratitude. Spock and his escort were assigned to repair a heat pump in a less-critical area of the ship which had been blasted apart by an explosion in the adjoining compartment.

Kirk remained with them, assisted with cutting off the bent cabinet panels. Spock started shyly, but by the time they were well into a resectioning of the undamaged piping, he worked with full confidence, seemed to be deep in meditation. Kirk stayed close, eyeing anyone who walked by. But after three hours the startled glances ceased, and Kirk felt secure enough to check on the rest of the engineering crew. 

Kirk pushed to his feet, checked that Mouse had the communicator with the alarm stud handy on her belt, and departed. Spock looked up from where he crouched, half inside the pump housing. His gaze was strange, a mixture of distracted concentration and bright pleasure.

Kirk smiled at him in return, spoke with too much emotion when told them he'd return to check on them regularly. Only Mouse was there to see it and she looked away, made herself busy.

Kirk was in the engine room, kneeling on a work pad, disassembling valves from ruined conduit when Captain Seyburn came by.

"Captain," Kirk said. He tapped with a hammer to loosen a stuck thread. "The tech who was here needed a rest break rather badly."

Seyburn said, "I'm usually more careful than this."

Kirk looked up and found Seyburn looking at the cold warp core. Panels had been pulled and stacked, wires and hoses draped out across the translucent containment wall.

Seyburn crouched beside Kirk, handed him the next valve. "I got bit by some kind of bug. Couldn't let it go. Get them all and we don't have another war to worry about. Destroyed one of them. The other was limping and I did most of the damage not letting her go."

Kirk's engineering crew continued to work, ignoring their conversation.

"Sounds like you could use a break as well, Captain," Kirk said.

"Do you need one?" Seyburn asked.

Kirk didn't. "Let me finish these last two for this unit."

Kirk worked fast. His hands were becoming raw on threads and metal flashing. As a youth on the farm his hands would have been indestructible. Kirk stood and nodded at Chief Long, who nodded back. There was other repair work to be done, on the ship's captain. 

Seyburn seemed to want to circle the ship's departments, which he had just finished doing. Kirk said, "You wouldn't happen to have a bottle of something, would you?"

"I can scare something up."

In Seyburn's palatial quarters, Kirk was urged to sit on a narrow sofa in an alcove across from the desk. Kirk sat back, ran his hand over the fuzzy material on the armrest. 

Seyburn departed and returned long minutes later with a botany sample tube.

"My science officer is in charge of the bar." He poured out two and sipped his. "One of the reasons I went to space, to get away from alcohol."

Kirk paused with his glass inches from his mouth. "I shouldn't have suggested it."

"You keep alcohol in your quarters?"

"No. But I do enjoy shore leave on that count."

"Shore leave is hard on that count." Seyburn waved the sample container. "It's only two servings. My officers are all well aware."

"I still feel badly for suggesting it."

"Then you better drink that one, rather than leave it for me."

Kirk took a sip, rested the glass on his thigh.

"Bad time to be this damaged and limping home," Seyburn said.

"When is there a good time for that?"

"When Starfleet has its head on straight."

Kirk stared across at the shelf behind Seyburn's desk which was full of collected alien art. "What do you think is going on?"

"Colossal infighting. Everyone of them imagines they are in charge of the whole sheebang."

Kirk said, "The Federation Council should be knocking heads together in that case."

"The council's been in a shambles since the colonies attacked. Crazy letting rebellious colonies keep their seat because of a pipe dream that it would provide a forum for peace later. The current council couldn't agree on a pizza order let alone take action against the admiralty."

Kirk sipped again. "You will see Mendez on Starbase 7 if you put in there, as I expect you will. Have a heart to heart with him and get back to me, would you?"

"I can do that." Seyburn laughed. "Kirk, I keep thinking your rank must be captain. What are you, twenty-five?"

Kirk grinned into his drink. "Almost. Oh wait. Yes. I missed a birthday."

"Lucky you. Damn crew of the USS Ticonderoga never misses the commander's birthday." He stood up and walked over. "Damn, I could be your father. Hold out your glass."

He poured the contents of his tumbler into Kirk's. "There, feel better?"

"Yes, actually." Kirk raised his brows. "Sir."

"Cut that out, Kirk."

\-------- 8888 --------

Six days later, they powered up the main drive on Tico and managed warp one point two. 

"I wouldn't have thought it possible," Seyburn said over a private channel. 

Kirk sat back on his bunk in his quarters with the monitor from the desk extended all the way out so he could reach it while sitting back. Chapel had ordered Kirk to rest, had been chasing him down every thirty hours like clockwork no matter where he hid. Had forced him to return to his own ship in exchange for Riley, the engineer, who would be more useful as extra hands on Tico, something Kirk should have figured out on his own. He couldn't use keeping an eye on Spock as an excuse, Chief Long and her crew were conspicuously always surrounding him.

Seyburn went on, "The engines would do warp 3, but the hull can't handle it. We've got a slow run to a commercial dock at Teranton Colony for patch up, then Starbase 7 for repairs on the rest. But I expect we'll make it, Njord willing." He rubbed his thin mustache. "I hear the Wasp was destroyed. I managed to get through my backlog of transmissions far enough to see that. Another less than careful commander. I'm in good company."

Kirk said, "Spitfire is eight days out from Starbase 7 with their prizes. That will be nice to see in the feeds."

Seyburn's eyes narrowed. "Do you have orders, Kirk?"

"No."

"What are you going to do?"

"I've been thinking about that. I have some ideas."

"Don't get above yourself."

Kirk smiled. "I'll do my best. I don't believe in Norse sea gods but I do believe in luck.

"I believe in whatever gets us home." Seyburn said. "I'm sending you your crew back within the hour. Take care of them. They deserve it. You know that Vulcan worked six days and nights with zero rest?"

Kirk nodded. He hoped Spock wasn't trying too hard to please. 

"He's like a machine," Seyburn said. "I thought you were off your rocker with that contractor nonsense, now I know better. We need to recruit on Vulcan. Why haven't we?"

Kirk held back a smile. "Cultural differences, I suppose. But speaking of Vulcans, before we go, I need a favor from you."

"Anything, Kirk."

"You have room in your brig? Do you have a working brig, I guess I should ask first. We're full."

"Brag. Brag. Yes, we have space. I'll tell my first to coordinate a transfer."

"One of the prisoners is my former head of security, just so you know. The rest are POWs."

"If we weren't trying to warp out within the hour, I'd invite you over to drink my science officer's hooch and tell me that story."

"I can summarize it well enough. He was abusive. I hit him. Now he's in my brig."

"Advantages of being the captain."

"If I get courtmartialed for it, I won't make it to captain. But I appreciate your ongoing confusion on that point."

"No one's going to bother with it. Not at a time like this." Seyburn smiled. "I wish I'd seen it."

"Do you, sir?"

"Relieved to learn you have a weakness. Everyone needs at least one. But I'm sure this will slide."

Kirk said, "One never knows what a bureaucracy will get in its head at the least opportune time."

"Then I'd keep him with you. Don't give him to me to take to Starbase 7 eventually where he can find someone's ear."

"He's poisoning the mood the of security with his presence and I want to make changes down there. Of course he might be providing an ongoing bad example to not follow. I suppose I could confine him to quarters instead. He didn't stay there last time."

"Engineering can fix that for you. Either way, decide quickly."

"Thank you, sir, I will. Kirk out."

Kirk went down to security. Found preparation for the transfer was happening with a decent level of professionalism.

Glissen finished speaking to Tico's first officer, turned and came to attention. "This will be a relief, sir."

"Put Yarrow in his quarters, we're keeping him."

She stared, nodded. "Yes, sir."

Security personnel were arriving in the main area. Glissen gestured for them to take Yarrow out. Yarrow glared at Kirk from behind the forcefield.

Kirk said, "It's here or Tantalus V, Yarrow."

Yarrow's mouth worked, but he put his head down.

The entire brig area was shielded from the transporter. Prisoners were taken to the corridor a few at a time and beamed out.

"Leave the commander for last," Kirk said of Zuram. 

When the rest of the brig was empty, Kirk ordered Glissen to leave them alone. Kirk stepped up to the forcefield. Zuram's expression was flat and muted.

"You are a being without a planet, Commander. Not sure what's going to become of you, but it's about to not be my problem."

Zuram remained fixed in place.

Kirk said. "Not sure you accomplished anything with your actions. Not sure what you intended to accomplish."

"We stated our goals."

"Yes, you want Federation influence out of Vulcan. You are like the colonists that way. In both cases the Federation you want out is already partly Vulcan and colonist. So, the notion is a little absurd. So is the notion that earth gets everything it wants. Everyone gives and takes a little. Vulcan gets more from being in the Federation than being out."

Kirk studied the Vulcan before him. He looked relaxed compared to when he'd been brought aboard. But his black eyes were deadly sharp. Kirk was glad for the forcefield.

"Human influence is contamination."

Kirk withheld a smile. "There's more the sentiment I expected. I'm curious, Commander . . ." Kirk paced, came back to have his nose right before the forcefield. ". . . why you let a half Vulcan on your crew at all?"

"You should ask Spock that."

"How do you know I haven't?"

"Because if he had answered you. Truthfully. You would have no need to ask me."

Kirk refused to let this shake him. "It certainly would look badly for the ruling families of Vulcan to have their sons in the Outliers."

Zuram said nothing.

"I know I'm asking the right questions because your choices are the truth or no response. Learning to lie would certainly help your cause. Spock is superior to you on that count."

"Yes. He is."

"I haven't passed on your message to Spock yet. Knowing that he's a traitor to you, would you like to change it?"

Zuram remained still for a time. "No. The message stands."

Kirk felt he stood on shifting sand. He stepped back, triggered the door to the corridor. Glissen was waiting with five personnel, two with rifles.

"Take him."

Just before they could lead Zuram out, Kirk said in Vulcan, "Best deserving fate to you, Commander," which was the closest possible translation of good luck.

Zuram stopped, turned, and security reacted, lowering phasers to aim at his torso.

Zuram repeated the phrase back to Kirk, enunciated carefully and accented properly. He stared hard at Kirk as if trying to read his thoughts, then for a second that strange uneasiness was back, and then Glissen ordered him to move.

Kirk returned to his quarters to think in the empty quiet. He sat back on his bunk, feet on the bunk opposite. 

The cabin door chimed. It was Jones escorting Spock from the Tico. Kirk took Spock's equipment pouch and stepped aside to let him in. Fatigue showed in the lines of Spock's shoulders and neck but his face showed nothing. Kirk thanked Jones and the door hissed closed. 

Kirk sat Spock down on his bunk, took his dark-haired head into his hands and kissed the top of it. His hair smelled of hydraulic fluid and instaweld resin. Kirk tipped Spock's head up and looked straight at him. Spock was giving him a surprised look and a raised brow.

Kirk said, "You were exemplary."

Spock relaxed. "I learned a great deal about warp core containment cooling systems."

"Have you been eating?"

"Yes, quite a bit. The engineering crew snacks regularly."

"In that case, rest. I'm going to see off the Tico from the bridge." At the door, Kirk turned. "And welcome home."

Spock's eyes softened. "I don't . . ." He sat straighter. "Thank you."

"Uh oh. The humans are wearing off on you."

"Indeed. Fatigue is also a factor."

When Kirk returned, Spock was lying curled on his side as much as one could on the narrow bunk, eyes closed. He still wore his unadorned uniform. The hiss of the door made his fingers twitch but he otherwise didn't move. 

Kirk stood watching him sleep. Spock's sixth sense of being watched was as quiescent as the rest of him. The now familiar feeling of fulfilled calm came over Kirk like an emotional haze. From the elegant lines of his brows and ears to his lithe hands, Kirk had a staggering affection for the being sleeping trustingly before him. But what lay beyond the surface, in his complex, hybrid mind?

There were questions Kirk needed to ask, but wondered if he could give them voice.

\-------- 8888 --------

"My wife."

Amanda sat in the small courtyard off their bedroom in a solid hooded robe despite the seasonal heat. Sarek knew it was to better hide her face.

He placed a fresh iced lime drink on the small table. It was fortunate the entire garden was in shade now, as she didn't seem to care enough to move out of the hot light.

Sarek stood in the faint breeze and considered the reasons why today might be more emotionally difficult than the days that came before it. Perhaps it was the usual, Amanda had chanced upon something of Spock's around the house. Sentimentality was a terrible thing. One might as well leave le-matya traps around the premises.

But, sentimentality was a reality that Sarek could not change. He also knew from experience that asking what had set off the emotional cascade was also not helpful toward suppressing those emotions. So, he considered all possible conditions and the answer occurred to him. It was the tenth day of the month, the anniversary of Spock departing.

Spock had been more clever that Sarek expected. As inconvenient as it was, he still felt a tiny bit of pride in it. 

Sarek sat on the bench opposite. "When there no news, it is logical to assume things are the same, and that nothing of any negative significance has occurred."

The hood nodded. She'd turned away farther, just in case.

The lime drink was sweating on the outside, despite the dry air, likely due to the vicinity of the earth plants in the garden.

Only one thing worked and Sarek was concerned if he overused it, it may stop working.

"Please drink."

Amanda turned and picked up the glass and sipped through the straw, a simple disposable thing imported from earth through a grey market smuggler.

There came footsteps to the edge of the garden. But it wasn't one of the servants, it was Sgroud, Sarek's part-time assistant, who rarely came to the estate.

"Ambassador, I have need to show you something."

Sarek found a little more emotional control and stood up.

"We should speak in private," Sgroud said. He was a young Vulcan who spent his spare hours climbing mountains in the wind and sandstorms and looked twice his age. Sarek often found himself placing too much faith in him as a result. 

In Sarek's study, Sgroud said, "You requested that I search available Federation feeds for information about your son. I have been doing so with great care, purchasing all relevant databases through a private supplier and mining the entire dataset in-house so that it is not possible for an outsider to determine what we are looking for."

Sarek nodded. 

"This was in the latest dataset, keyed to Spock's earth ID, which seemed logical to search for, given he may attempt to find a place there." He held out a padd.

Sarek read the screen. It was an official Federation document. An approval for an application for private contractor status with Starfleet, of all things. The content of the application was appended. Sarek keyed that up. Found it originated from the USS Ranger. Found it contained Spock's signature.

That message which had so injured Sarek's pride to send, the human, Kirk, had managed to make the most of it despite long odds. 

"Where is the USS Ranger now?" Sarek asked.

Sgroud shook his head. "Starfleet does not know exactly where its ships are."

"That is most unexpected. Are you certain of this?"

"Yes. I paid a call to my aunt and uncle who are in shipping, as you know, since you have recently become a customer. They are more aware than most of the vessel movements within sensor range of the restricted zone. There have been no inbound transmissions that contain location data, only outbound commands. The vessels themselves are communicating ship to ship for coordination."

"So Spock is perhaps not any safer."

"I do not have any means of estimating that."

Sarek returned to the garden. He was not any more sanguine about Spock's situation, but expected this would please Amanda, and that was valuable.

Amanda looked up as he entered, not hiding her face. Her eyes were dry, but doleful, appearing to have taken Sgroud's visit as a bad sign.

Sarek sat beside her. "I expect you will find this to be positive news."

She stroked the screen as she read. "That's his earth ID. I remember when I insisted we file for it. But I'm not sure I understand."

"My assumption is this is James Kirk's way of keeping Spock on his ship."

"So, he is safe." The empty way she said this worried Sarek.

"Safe from the Outliers, yes. He is still in a war zone."

"But he is not alone." This was spoken with reverent relief.

Sarek raised a brow. She scrolled to the top again, where the approval stamp resembled one used on paper. 

"Starfleet is allowing this?"

"I suspect Starfleet does not realize it. His earth ID has never been used. I expect that the system checks for deleterious records related to the ID and failing to find any, issues an automated approval. The application describes technical needs that have been crafted specifically to trigger an accelerated processing of the application."

"Clever humans," she said.

"Clever or not, I would certainly prefer Spock be here with us and will attempt to fetch him home by any means possible."

She nodded and lowered her hood to her shoulders, letting the green filtered light of the garden fall on her face. "I would like to see him safe. Especially after all I'm certain he's been through."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk stood on the bridge beside the center seat. The first shift bridge crew were busy settling in at their stations. He looked over at the engineering panel. There were several yellow status lights.

Kirk asked comm to connect him to engineering. "Chief Long, with reasonable rest breaks for your tired engineering crew, how long before we have all systems green lighted?"

There was a delay. "Four days, Commander."

"If we sustain warp 3 will that interfere with repairs?"

"Not immediately, sir."

Kirk took his seat. Four days was just right. He needed time to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. I was weak. I'm a stickler for point of view and I broke it here. I just had to. I'm a sucker for Sarek/Amanda.
> 
> It will likely happen again. Hopefully doing so doesn't make the outstanding mysteries a cheat. (Meaning, if we could get inside Spock's head, there would be a lot less uncertainty in the story. But we're only inside Kirk's head. Ehem.)
> 
> Sorry to be slow posting lately. I hit that middle story lull where it becomes actual work to get all the ducks in a row. But I think I'm past it. Crosses fingers.


	27. Weakness

Kirk sat at the desk in his cabin, fingers interlocked, knuckles pressed to his lips. Spock was using the padd to flip through engineering diagrams of the Ranger. He flipped backward and forward, steered his way through projected renderings, completely engrossed.

"Spock."

Spock looked up. He'd recovered completely from working nonstop on the Tico in just five hours of sleep and two hours of meditation. Kirk tried not to feel debilitating envy.

"Did you see the scans from our most recent encounter with the rebel colony ships?"

Spock shook his head. 

Kirk pulled them up on the padd, handed it back.

"Does that spherical pod look familiar to you? It seems to be some kind of engine based on the warp signature. But there is nothing in the Federation databanks."

Spock paged through the scan data. "It does appear to be some kind of engine. If I could access a particular archival observation database on Vulcan, I can check records there for anything similar."

"Is there a relay nearby that you could use?"

"There is one approximately twelve light years away. Being closer to it would be helpful to querying."

Kirk took the padd, looked up the coordinates, pressed the comm stud and told Nav to plot a course.

Spock said, "You changed the ship's course based on this conversation?"

"Until I work out where the Ranger would be put to best use, it doesn't matter where we go. And until repairs are completed, I don't want to go far." Kirk interlocked his fingers again. "I got used to being in a flotilla. We're out here alone again."

Kirk swung off his bunk and sat beside Spock on his. Spock returned his attention to the padd, flipping through diagrams showing the power distribution.

Kirk watched the animations and layer slices go by for a while, letting himself be mesmerized by them. Spock's hands seemed incongruently elegant compared to the bulk of the padd. Kirk watched his hands for a while, then reached out and ran his fingers over Spock's unadorned red shirt sleeve, just for something to do.

Spock half turned his head Kirk's way. "I do not understand that gesture."

"I'm bored."

"I see."

"I need to think. I need to figure out why the colonist rebels were in this part of space. I need to figure out what's going on at Starfleet. But I'm bored of thinking. And you're here."

"Perhaps you should attempt meditation."

Kirk smiled. Spock had found his footing with him. Gaining confidence would do that.

Kirk said, "You have nice hands."

"You are very bored."

"That's not boredom talking, you do have nice hands." 

Only touching Spock's wrist, Kirk took one of Spock's hands off the padd, turned it over, decided he liked the back better, turned it back. He wondered what those hands would feel like touching him. 

Spock extricated his hand. "You are doing this out of boredom." He sounded offended.

Kirk smiled. "Not only out of boredom. Boredom is stripping my control." Kirk sat back, hands behind his head. "You seem much improved from when you came aboard."

Spock placed the padd on Kirk's bunk and sat back again. "I am." He fell silent for a time. "And I am grateful to you for your wisdom in not acceding to my expectations. It is difficult, almost painful, to accept that you comprehended my state of mind better than I did. But you did."

"Experience." Kirk studied Spock's profile. "You are young enough to try too hard to please. Or that was my assumption and if I was wrong, no harm done."

Spock turned his head away.

"I worry you are still doing it. You worked too hard on the Tico."

"My efforts were not excessive."

"You came back to the ship and slept. Actually slept. You didn't wake up when I came in. You exhausted yourself."

Spock looked at Kirk. "I was pleased to do so."

"I didn't say you weren't."

"I have been taught excessive amounts of theory: physics, materials, astronomical, dynamical. But have never been given tasks that required so much application of that learning, that carried such autonomy and responsibility. I am accustomed to strict, structured activities with no express purpose to it. On the Ticonderoga I learned much more than I could imagine about how theory becomes reality. And I still do not know my limits." He looked down at his hands. "I do not know who I can be, given different circumstances."

"Spock, that's why beings join organizations like ours."

"I see." He sounded wistful. "I was incapable of understanding that previously. But it is perfectly logical."

Kirk gave him a soft smile. "Care to join?"

Spock's voice was quiet. "I would. But it is likely impossible."

"It helps me to know you want to. Especially since my chief engineer wants to put you to work on a regular basis. She'd also like to clone you and put all of your clones to work as well." Kirk put his hand around Spock's arm. "And I'll get you into Starfleet, if at all possible."

"It seems fully outside your purview. You are on a ship lightyears from Starfleet Academy."

"Look who's talking. You didn't have to code and spread the bot virus. You didn't have to join the Militants."

"I did, indeed, feel I must do both of those things."

"And, I feel I must get you into Starfleet Academy."

Spock's lips stretched thin. Kirk took it as a kind of smile. 

"My father will object."

"He objected to your joining the Militants. At least, I expect he did."

"Doing so placed me outside his influence, allowing me to remain once I arrived. Starfleet would not."

"True. But I'm still determined."

Kirk pushed to his feet. "I should tour my ship. I didn't previously spend this much time in my quarters. They are going to forget they have a commander."

At the door, Kirk turned. "Glissen requested an opportunity to apologize to you in person. In case you don't remember, because you were stunned silly, she's the one who broke your fingers. I had to keep her, as much as I hated to do so. No one else in that department has any experience."

"As a follower of Surak, I must give her the opportunity."

Kirk nodded. "Thanks. I'll set something up. This is voluntary, of course."

"I understand that, James."

"Just wanted to be clear."

\-------- 8888 --------

Three chairs had been placed in the former conference room, which was getting cleared out as supplies were used and crates unfolded and stacked. Kirk checked that Glissen was already waiting before going to fetch Spock.

"You want to back out?" Kirk asked Spock when they arrived at the door.

Spock stood with his hands clasped before him, appearing sedate in his brown robes. "No."

Glissen turned sharply as the door opened, fully alert. Kirk wished he'd checked her for weapons before fetching Spock. A serious mistake. He'd lost his edge on protecting Spock.

Kirk introduced them. "Why don't you both have a seat. You clean, Glissen?"

She held up her hands and nodded. Kirk had to trust her answer or risk losing their slowly improving command relationship. The question had caught her by surprise in a way that was hard to feign.

Kirk turned to stand beside the door.

Glissen stood back up. "You're going, sir?"

Kirk leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed. "No. I'll stay. Pretend I'm not here."

Glissen retook her seat facing Spock. She breathed in deeply and pushed her shoulders back. She'd put on muscle since he'd promoted her. He often saw her in the gym area of the cargo bay using the resistance system. She rubbed her face as she looked Spock over. 

"I uh, I wanted to say how sorry I am." She shook her head, gaze unfocused. "I don't know why I fell in line like that. I like to think I know better." She pulled her hair back. "But it's my fault what I did." She huffed out a loud breath and stared off into the distance.

Spock's hands had been steepled, relaxed in his lap, but the backs were now corded and taut.

"I am required to accept your apology."

"Required by whom?" She glanced at Kirk.

"By my adherence to the teachings of Surak, the ancient philosopher who established peace on Vulcan through logic."

Glissen breathed in and sat back. "Oh." Her face changed expression a few times. "Does that mean you wouldn't otherwise? Forgive me, that is?"

Kirk held his breath.

Spock said, "Perhaps eventually."

Glissen said, "So, how does that work? You can't force someone to forgive. It doesn't work like that."

Spock's voice lost inflection. "Offense taken is merely an emotion, which I can render meaningless to my actions."

"That's just discipline."

Spock nodded once. "That is one aspect of it."

Glissen's shoulders lowered. "I'm sorry I broke your hand. It was an unsporting thing to do to someone who is down. If someone did that to me, I'd hit them back next chance I got." She glanced up at Kirk, who didn't react.

"Revenge only leads to more violence." Spock sounded as if he were quoting someone else.

She looked away. "I find it gains respect that prevents future trouble."

Her eyes shifted back to Spock. "You're healed, though."

"Indeed."

"I know that's not no harm done. But it makes me feel a little better you didn't take long healing." She worked her lips. "You told us where the enemy was. We didn't show much appreciation for that, I know. That was bad form."

Spock said, "I did it for my own reasons. I did not want a war. I did not want my planet attacked again."

"That's right. The colonists slipped through, didn't they?"

"Indeed."

"No one expected that."

"Certainly not my planet, which is deep inside the most protected zone of the Federation."

Glissen rubbed her delicate hands over her face. "My fave instructor at the academy who would kick my butt if he knew what I did. He said everyone is someone's son or daughter, brother or sister. Always imagine how you'd want your brother or sister treated if they were captured by the enemy. I feel a bit sick when I think of it that way. I messed up." She swallowed hard.

Kirk relaxed his arms, barely held them crossed.

Glissen spoke into the silence. "Doctor Chapel came down and read us the riot act about how dangerous it was to repeatedly stun a Vulcan. But we didn't know that. I mean, it took several stun shots to get some of you down."

Spock said, "Conversely, humans are rather easy to incapacitate."

Kirk raised his chin.

Glissen smiled. "Yeah. Sucks to be us."

Kirk said, "I didn't want you two coming to a meeting of the minds over offensive tactics."

"Sorry, sir," Glissen said.

Kirk thought, it wasn't you. But he remained out of it. He hoped she'd continue with the awkward conversation.

Glissen had relaxed. She looked directly at Spock, exhaled as though amused. "Those Vulcans were tough beans. Commander wants us to change procedure just as we get that mob in the brig. Sharing a ship with that lot without a security field . . . can't fathom." She shook her head. 

Spock said, "They were disciplined toward their purpose and were not difficult companions the preponderance of the time. You only observed one aspect of them."

She snorted. "It was enough for me." Her eyes narrowed and she smiled oddly. "You must have managed to fit in." 

"I remained quiet and allowed them make false assumptions. I am accustomed to that from childhood." Spock's knuckles were white again. "One can fit in simply by not standing out. Trust is difficult to gain, but if someone wishes to believe, they will convince themselves."

"Well, our CO clearly trusts you." She looked up at Kirk. 

Kirk nodded.

Glissen said, "Anything else, sir?"

Kirk was disappointed that she was finished. "This meeting was called for your benefit, Glissen. You decide when it's over." 

Glissen stood up. "I'm set, sir." To Spock she said, "Sorry again. It was wrong what we did. What I did, too."

Spock nodded once, eyes averted from both of them.

Back in his quarters, Kirk pointedly asked, "You all right?"

"Yes." Sounding a little sharp, Spock said, "Have I given you a specific reason for that question?"

"You have now." Kirk switched to speaking affectionately. "I figured that meeting was going to be harder than you expected."

Spock stood with fingers steepled, tension in his neck and jaw. Kirk considered trying to get him to open up but assumed Spock's defensiveness indicated that there was already an impenetrable wall around him.

Kirk said, "Thanks for agreeing to the meeting. I think Glissen might be salvageable and you were a big help with that. If you are up for it, Chief Long wants to put you on first shift tomorrow. No requirement, though. But I'd like to inform her this evening."

Some of the hard edges softened in Spock's face. "I would be pleased to do that."

Kirk smiled, but Spock didn't look up. He sensed that Spock wanted to be left alone, that he was struggling to hide his emotions from Kirk. 

Kirk said, "I need to go to the bridge for the split shift. I'll be back in four."

Spock nodded. 

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk returned to find Spock on the bunk curled on his side, but too tense to be asleep. Kirk sat on the edge of the bunk in the small space between Spock's elbows and his knees and rested his hand between Spock's shoulder blades. He bent and kissed him on the temple as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do. Spock didn't react.

"Can you talk to me a little?" Kirk said.

Spock's eyes opened. He breathed in deeply and out again, almost a sigh. "I am having difficulty with conflicting priorities."

Kirk rubbed the back of Spock's neck, which was corded and hot.

Kirk said, "You want to go back to Vulcan."

Spock's head turned in a tiny jerk. "How did you ascertain that?"

"I've seen a lot of fellow crew go through every stage you are going through. You aren't as unique as you think you are. Which, by the way, is exactly what everyone thinks about their own situation. You aren't even unique in that."

Spock's neck relaxed but his eyes stared ahead intently. "I do wish to return. But I also strongly do not. It is not logical."

"It is logical. Your family's estate is safety, which everyone craves eventually."

Spock's profile showed no emotion. "I feel safe here with you."

"It's not the same kind of safety. In this case, you are intellectualizing that you feel safe. With your family on Vulcan, it is instinctive."

"Perhaps."

"It was too early to have you talk to Glissen. You fooled me."

Spock pushed himself up onto his elbow. "You were not mistaken. I was strong enough for it. I do not know what my difficulty is."

"I do. I threw you into a meeting with someone who had made you helpless. That's not conducive to feeling strong."

Spock breathed in and out, appeared annoyed. "I am in control of my emotions. And I would be pleased to do a shift tomorrow in engineering."

Kirk put a hand on his shoulder. "I'd be pleased to have you do so."


	28. Trust

Mid-shift, Kirk left Doyle with the conn and went down to engineering. The backup warp containment coils were in the center of the floor and Chief Long and her officers were debating why they were tending to overheat. Spock knelt on the end, head down over his hand-held scanner. He looked up and zeroed in on Kirk as soon as Kirk stepped into engineering.

Long held a scanner as well, a large and complex one with several sample slots. "The alloy looks right."

Another engineering officer said, "If we have everything to spec, why are we having issues?"

Long said, "Could be the crystallization increasing resistance. Thoughts, Spock?"

Spock said, "Do we have a sensor recording of the crystallization process along with the conditions present?"

"You sound like a lab tech," Jones said.

Long said, "We could get that data. If we soften and anneal this coil and mount it with sensors. I do prefer to know what's going on, even if this isn't critical yet." 

Long greeted Kirk. "To do this, we'll have to shut down the warp core, Commander. But if we can figure out the problem we might eek out another two tenths of a warp."

"We're half a day from our destination."

"Which is?"

"Short range of a communications relay."

"Oh." Her brow furrowed. 

Even Kirk had to admit that didn't sound particularly exciting.

"If things are quiet there, we can bring down the warp core." He tried to sound stern. "Hopefully briefly."

Kirk met the gaze of each of the engineering personnel, ending with Spock. 

To Long, he said, "Have Spock escorted back to my quarters end of shift."

In the corridor, Kirk found himself hearing Glissen's words again. CO clearly trusts you.

Kirk did trust him. But he would be working on the warp core. And like every other crewmember, Spock's work would be checked and re-checked. But if anything were to happen, the final report would look pretty damning for Kirk's current decisions.

On the bridge these thoughts circled in Kirk's mind when he needed to be thinking strategy. He kept landing on the notion that he had to trust something or give up an important piece of himself.

After shift Kirk returned to his empty quarters. Chief Long had requested to keep Spock for two hours into the next shift. Ten hours wasn't going to harm someone who was capable of a hundred and twenty at a go.

Rand buzzed at the door. 

"I was just about to sit down to those reports," Kirk told her. "But come in."

Rand stood primly. "Even though it is difficult to transmit them, we need to log them into the system the same as always, Commander."

"Yes. I know."

"You've been distracted, sir." She sounded corrective.

Kirk smiled faintly. "Not as distracted as you probably think I have been. And what I really need to do right now is have an epiphany about what's going on so I can plan for the future, not spend time worrying about the past."

"Nevertheless, you will give me a full report to log before the start of split shift, sir?"

Kirk was not one to be difficult with crew who had the ability to remind him of the rules. "Yes."

Rand relaxed her stretched-tall pose. "In that case, there have been some interesting communications from nearby ships in the last few hours."

"You were going to hold back on me, Yeoman?"

"I prioritize your communications all the time, sir."

Kirk pulled out the desk and sat down at it, rested his chin on his fingers. Too many people had control of him. 

Rand said, "The public feeds have been quiet, but now we are receiving similar encoded transmissions from the nearest four ships. Apparently, this has been going on for a while among the larger ships in the sector, but we've been far enough out no one has selected us for reception until now."

"Understood. In turn we should distribute our latest report to Stone and Mendez."

She handed him a tape. "Much of the traffic is still of a non-official nature, sir. And still often lacks location data."

Kirk put the tape in. "No one trusts anyone else. Don't strip the location data from our first message. I don't see any reason to hide anything about what happened. And Spitfire will be at Starbase 7 soon enough."

"May I suggest, sir, that we remain in close range of at least one other Starfleet vessel?"

"If I figure out what's going on, I'll call in some other ships."

"You don't have the authority to do so." She sounded corrective again. Kirk wondered what was actually irritating her. 

Kirk smiled. "Yeoman, I called in the Ticonderoga. I don't have to have authority, just a convincing idea."

She remained there, standing extra upright.

"Is there anything else?" Kirk asked gently.

"I'll expect your full missing reports by sixteen hundred?"

Kirk studied her schooled expression. "You don't like Spock, do you?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"That's alarming. I thought you already were." He gestured with his hand. "But go ahead."

"I don't understand why you trust him so implicitly, sir. And I see from the duty roster that he is working on the ship's engines today."

Kirk felt his chest tighten. He'd stood in the engine room wondering the same thing. 

He replied slowly. "It's part of being a soldier. When you have someone beside you in battle, when you see them in the absolutely worst circumstances, when you defy death because that person is there, you either trust them completely from then on, or you have to give up entirely on the idea of trust."

"I have read your record from start to finish. There is no record of this happening."

"No, there isn't. Because I falsified the report. But I'd be dead if it weren't for Spock. I know he seems closed off to you--"

"He isn't to you, sir?"

"No, he is to some degree. He's been through a lot. And even if we're friends, he's still a Vulcan."

"Not to be difficult, sir, but are you continuing to falsify reports?"

Kirk grinned. "No, I'm just failing to file them at all. It's considerably easier." 

He put his feet up on the bunk opposite. "And I don't mind if you're difficult. I can defend my position just fine or I wouldn't have adopted it."

She finally glanced down, a gesture accented by her unnaturally long eyelashes.

Kirk said, "I'll give you a full report to file including my striking my own officer and taking on a contractor that should be a POW, but we won't be transmitting it at this time. Someone at Command wants to start a war with Vulcan and I'm not going to help with that."

"And if you get courtmartialed for it, sir?"

"If we reach a time of peace, I'll happily sit through a court martial over any of this. I refuse to let that have power over me. Understood?"

Her expression grew firm again. "And if I wish to append my own report to yours, sir, when I file it in the memory banks?"

"Please go right ahead. You don't even have to run it by me if you don't want to. I'm not about to sit her insisting my own morals have precedence over regulation or procedure and not allow you the same option."

She nodded while staring out beyond the bulkhead. 

Kirk said, "But that doesn't solve your immediate problem, which is that your commander is sharing quarters with the enemy."

"My assessment wasn't quite so . . . blunt, sir. I do wish you would be more careful. You seem enamored."

Kirk rubbed his lips with his fingers. "I likely am."

She stood even taller, lips pursed.

Kirk said, "I told you I'd left a boyfriend in a previous port. I didn't expect you'd get to meet him."

She blinked and stared at him.

"My previous port was Vulcan. Which also, by the way, isn't in the official record. A certain admiral kept it out. For reasons that might be getting clearer."

"And they are?"

Kirk sat back. "Well, I was given this command, and promotion, out of the blue. I thought perhaps it was a reward, or it could have been to get me out of the way, or to set me up to fail. But now I see it might have been to secure an ally in avoiding a second war. Which means I can probably trust Admiral Coyran."

She sounded dismissive. "Why read so much into it, sir?"

"Because I wouldn't have given myself this command. And I trust people too much, remember?"

"That's useful to know, sir."

"You may keep questioning me anytime, Yeoman. But if you want me to do those reports, maybe pick it up again later?"

"Yes, sir." 

She departed with a flick of her skirt.

Kirk pulled the tape out and pulled up the report composer. He started by describing how the Ranger been on patrol and how he'd received inside information from a personal acquaintance, how Ranger and her sister ships had approached the supergiant in a flotilla with Ticonderoga. He left Commodore Stone out of it, which bothered him a bit since he felt he was confessing and wanted the full emotional release for doing so. 

When he reached the point in the battle when the comm light from security started blinking, he stopped and without allowing himself to hesitate, pulled up the archive tape. The camera had been tampered with, which wasn't a surprise. The view was blurry and off center. Kirk checked the live feed from security, found it returned to normal, and switched back to the archive. 

Spock had been groggy when he'd been brought aboard, already recovering from the stun. He was trying to speak, was asking to see the ship's commander. Kirk's heart felt like it was being carved out watching it. He wanted to turn it off, but that would be disloyal. Spock had suffered these events at least partly for him, and sharing in them was the least he could do.

Yarrow dragged Spock to the center of the floor and it wasn't clear in the hazy image, but appeared to kick him in the neck. The man was in a full on rage. Spock curled up, protecting his head with his arms. The rest of security that was in view on the crooked camera stood and watched, mesmerized. Kirk knew that state of mind post-battle. It was altered mental state of detachment, but that wasn't a real excuse, just an explanation.

Spock grabbed Yarrow's leg and Glissen stunned him.

Spock lay senseless for many minutes. Yarrow kicked him periodically while pacing and griping, usually aiming for the lower right of his rib cage.

Kirk willed Spock to remain unconscious, even though the events were in the past. Kirk knew how long he'd been busy on the bridge, how long before he decided the signal from security could become the top priority. 

Spock clumsily grabbed Yarrow's pant leg without showing any sign of awareness. Yarrow jerked free and Glissen pinned Spock's arm with her foot. Yarrow raged at Spock, about how useless Vulcans were as lifeforms, how ignorantly elitist they were, and how much they would finally get what they deserved. 

Only a few others in security seemed to agree openly. Most simply treated it as a show. 

Spock didn't reply and that made Yarrow more angry. He kicked Spock in the side again, hard enough the sound came clearly through the mic. Spock twisted to the side and knocked Yarrow's legs out from under him with his foot. It was a lightening move, again with no warning. Someone off camera stunned him again. 

Glissen used her foot to toss Spock's limp form straight again on the floor and stepped down on his hand. The sharp sound of bones breaking made Kirk flinch away from the monitor. His heart raced, longed for something to strike out at.

Pounding feet approached and he saw himself, blurry and distorted, break into the circle of personnel. Glissen stepped back but Yarrow stood his ground. And Kirk hit him. Hard. Wished he'd hit him harder, wished he'd hit him several times, with a few rounds for Glissen. That impotent rage from that moment returned full force as he sat at his desk. He felt again like there was nothing to fight for and never was, just his own delusion.

Kirk stopped the archive replay and waited until his voice wasn't quavering anymore to finish recording the log. He attached a link to the archive in the report. Then he went on, sounding empty. He explained that he knew Spock well. That he'd been a spy. He explained taking him on as a passenger, not a prisoner. He explained everything except his personal emotions for him. He started another log and explained about falsifying their subspace ID, felt a certain satisfaction at the thought of it. He closed that one and opened another, described repairing the Ticonderoga, and transferring the prisoners. Then he signed off.

He needed a drink. He considered who on board might have something. He didn't have a science officer with a still like Seyburn had. Medical was a possibility. Old Easy Pills Chapel might have alcohol she'd hand over, especially since Kirk had never asked in all these months. She'd know it wasn't a habit.

The door chimed. 

Kirk got up and released the door. It was Crewmember Darana, escorting Spock. 

"Good evening, sir."

This was a lot of words from her. He put on a kind expression. "Good evening, Mouse."

"Good evening, sir," she repeated and hurried away.

Spock stepped inside. His eyes were bright. He looked pleased. He looked good in uniform.

Kirk hugged him.

Spock's left hand came to rest on Kirk's back. "James, you are quite agitated."

Kirk forced control on himself. Breathed slowly, but didn't let go. He was full length pressed against Spock and that was better than alcohol. 

"Just give me a few moments, all right?" Kirk said, voice mostly level.

Spock's body was firm and wiry pretty much everywhere. Kirk was tempted to shift sideways to fit them together better, but he held still.

Spock's voice came from beside his ear. "May I enquire what has happened?"

"Nothing." Kirk laughed painfully and pulled back. Spock was a long time relaxing his hand so that Kirk could put space between them. Kirk bit his lips to keep from saying more. He felt completely overwhelmed and undermined at the same time, but calm was seeping in. He drew it into his lungs, knew once it overcame him he wouldn't say anything his pride would regret.

Kirk let go and stepped back. "You look good in that." He waved at the uniform.

Spock nodded crookedly, clearly not distracted by the change in topic.

"I do not know how to help you, James."

"Your presence is all I need." Kirk stood there a few moments more. The calm did the rest of its work, but Kirk still felt wounded and lacking in violent outlets.

Kirk sat down on his desk chair, waved for Spock to sit across from him on the bunk.

Spock obediently did so, sitting forward as though ready to move.

Kirk looked for something pride-saving to say. "We should be close enough to that relay for a query."

Spock didn't sit back. Concern was written in every line of him. All the doubts Kirk had experienced that day evaporated.

Spock said, "We are. I sent several during first shift. The responses will be arriving within the hour."

"Good. Did you also attempt a message to your parents?"

"I did. I will not be able to confirm if it was received. But I did make the attempt."

"Good. I don't want your mother worrying."

"I do not want my father doing anything our family may later regret."

Kirk smiled, put the tape back in. Scrolled through it. His pride was beating at him a little less.

Spock said, "It would be helpful to me to know what precipitated your negative emotions."

Kirk didn't look up. "I'd rather not talk about it so I can get past it. It won't re-occur."

"I still do not perceive that logic. But last time you made such an assertion it was correct."

The transmission feed was scrolling by. Kirk couldn't really read it. Spock had reminded him of Wolfram Thesus 5. 

"I have an entire ship relying on me. I'll rise to it." Kirk sounded better to himself and that helped a lot.

"I will give you the benefit of the doubt, James."

Spock raised his hands to a meditative pose, but his eyes didn't go distant.

Kirk began to read for real. The tape contained two days of unofficial reports transmitted ship to ship in a form similar to a feed but sparser and with longer messages. Ships were sharing mission information in the form of gossip, some of it meaningless, some of it useful: overviews of action at the Klingon border passed on third hand, colonies that had surrendered, surprise attacks by a small colony that just couldn't give in despite hopeless odds. Discussion about the annoyance of that, the usual mocking of the enemy participants.

It felt good to be back in connection with something larger than their small ship.


	29. Debris, Part 1

The next day, halfway through second shift, Spock was again escorted back to Kirk's quarters.

"You might be working too hard," Kirk said to Spock. "Making my crew lazy."

"Your engineering department should be twice the size it currently is. I do not believe there is a risk."

"That would make the entire crew engineering."

"Indeed. This class of ship is untenable."

Kirk nodded. "Too complicated for the crew it can hold. It should be larger, or simpler."

"That is my conclusion. It is possible for smaller to equal simpler. But the wrong design decisions were made in this ship."

"You want to write that up with specifics. I'll submit it to 'Fleet. They are supposed to retrofit the rest of the class."

"I am not qualified to offer an opinion."

"Yes. You are."

Spock appeared touched. Nodded.

Kirk returned to reading reports. A new line popped up on the encoded inter-ship feed. Potemkin was currently at top warp speed, on their way to investigate a star system five days away from Ranger's current location that they estimated was the colonist's base of operations. Kirk pulled up a star chart and found nothing remarkable about the system. He asked Comm to ask Potemkin why they thought that star system was suspicious. 

Kirk felt better knowing there was a constitution class starship coming to the neighborhood. 

Comm chimed half an hour later, informing Kirk that the private relay had responded. 

Kirk got up and sat beside Spock, who was already scrolling through screens of Vulcan text. Kirk could only catch a common word or two per screen. Diagrams flashed by, some old style images with extra diagrams drawn over them to make them clearer. All kinds of ship configurations went by in variations on round. Spock apparently had run a very broad query to avoid having to re-query.

Spock slowed. Read for a bit.

"You have no record in your Federation databanks for the First Federation?" Spock looked up at Kirk in question.

"First Federation? I haven't heard of that." 

Kirk asked the computer. It responded in negative.

Spock said, "They are led by an ancient spacefaring race called the Fesarians that defends territory on the far side of the Perseus Arm. The engine design in your scans is identical to theirs."

Spock held up an old 3D scanner photo of a spherical ship made up of spherical modules. 

Kirk said, "I've never seen the like of that. How big is it?"

Spock said, "This mothership was measured at over two thousand meters in diameter. And it wasn't the largest encountered."

Kirk made a noise of surprise. "And they are apparently selling technology to the Colonist Rebels. That would explain why the rebels are in this part of space. It's the shortest distance back to the Federation. Our Federation, that is."

Kirk handed the padd back to Spock and sat back. "That's one mystery solved. Tell me the capabilities of those engines."

"The last recorded, or projected assuming ongoing development?"

"It says they've been in space at least fifty thousand years. I'm going to assume they fine tuned their engine technology long ago. Give me last recorded."

Kirk closed his eyes and listened as Spock read off warp field potentials, thrust vectors, rebound rates, cold start estimates, and degradation rates.

"So, super high thrust with very little warp degradation at low vectors. Have I got that right? Summarize all of that and I'll give it to Comm to put in the local encoded feed along with our observations and guesses."

Kirk pushed up and went back to his monitor, pulled up the local star charts and studied them. "Give me the coordinates for the First Federation."

Kirk mapped those and rotated the view side to side, up and down along with their current and past encounters with both the Colonist Rebels and the Vulcan Militants. He pressed the communications switch and asked Nav to get him likely courses between those coordinates and where they had encountered the Colonist Rebels. 

To Spock, Kirk asked, "The Militants have anything to do with the First Federation?"

"I observed nothing and it is highly unlikely."

Kirk wryly said, "Their engines are probably too slow."

"Records indicate that the Fesarians tend to behave unpredictably. Vulcan long ago classed them as a final stage society focused entirely on amusement. I believe that is at least part of the explanation for low contact."

Kirk looked at the star maps with a different eye now, assuming Ranger and her sister ships had not been positioned to attack Vulcan, but to defend it. Admiral Coyran could have assumed Kirk was friendly to Vulcan having just been rescued by a Vulcan ship and given hospitality by one of its leading citizens. Or maybe Kirk had grown fatigued by paranoia and just had to believe that.

Kirk signaled for Rand to bring two meals. 

Rand brought a tray with a single plate heaped with colorful vegetarian cubes.

"Anything else, sir?"

Kirk smiled at her seemingly irked attitude. 

"Call a meeting of department heads for end of second shift, on the bridge. And put that local ship feed through to my monitor as it gets decoded."

"Yes, sir. I'm uncertain how to log it, since much of it is not intended for us."

"Log it normally. Might as well keep things simple."

"Yes, sir."

The door closed.

"She doesn't like you," Kirk said.

"I have noticed."

"Yes, I suppose you have."

"I am not skilled at recognizing human motivations. It is jealousy?"

Kirk choked on the bite in his mouth. Coughed. 

"I don't think so. If she were, that would be more interesting than simply not believing you are who you say you are."

"You mean in the sense of where my loyalties lie, not in the sense of my not being Sarek's son."

"Correct."

"I see. I have found the level of trust unexpectedly high."

"In Starfleet if you've been assigned by someone higher up and demonstrate that you are levelheaded, reliable, and intelligent, people will grow to trust you. That's how we work as a team."

They ate in silence for a time.

Kirk said, "I'm curious about something."

Spock leaned forward and took another cube off the plate. "Is it related to the issue of loyalty?"

"Not at all. But it is a personal question. I'm curious about your dislike of melds."

Spock's face became more angular and his eyes hard. He swallowed what he was chewing and held the other half of the cube between two fingers.

Kirk went on as if Spock hadn't reacted. "From what I read about Vulcans it's not generally considered a sensitive topic. Unlike some other topics."

Spock continued to stare at the half cube of blue food. "Am I required to discuss this?"

Kirk sighed. "We've crossed a line, Spock. You are more crew now than guest. You've never been psych profiled or, if you have, not under Starfleet's regime."

"I see."

"Finish that bite," Kirk said of the cube Spock was slowly crushing.

Spock did so, chewing distractedly.

Kirk said, "Remember how you said it felt like you hadn't gone through experiences alone after you told me about them? That can work for a lot of issues." Kirk exhaled slowly so he would sound unemotional when he spoke. "You're important to me, and I don't want you having difficulties."

Spock sat quietly, eyes distant.

Kirk said, "I can see we've hit a exceptionally sensitive topic. Unfortunately, that means I really can't let it go."

"It is not something I wish to remember in order to explain it."

"Is this something that happened with the Militants?"

"No." 

Spock swallowed. "If I refuse to explain, I assume I will lose my privileges?"

Kirk pushed to his feet and resumed his seat beside Spock, sitting so their legs touched. "I'm not holding that over you. You can do a shift tomorrow whether you answer right now or not. I got the sense you enjoyed working the last two days."

"I am not accustomed to being useful. It is unexpectedly rewarding."

Kirk held the plate out between them. "Eat a bit more. You are so thin it alarms me."

"I am well within half a standard deviation of the median for my race."

Kirk took the plate back and rested it in his own lap. Then he held it out again. "You are half human. Eat more."

Spock accepted a cube. "My metabolism is almost entirely Vulcan."

Kirk took a cube and put the half-full plate on the desk. "My metabolism always wants to eat more."

"I have not observed any downside for you."

"That's because you've only ever seen me starving, or too busy to eat." Kirk held up a cube. "Or only with access to this substance."

Kirk nibbled at the corner of the green cube he held. It had the consistency of crumbly wax and tasted the way silage smelled. "So, in another thirty hours or so the engineering board will be green-lighted. I'd like to hunt down the Colonist ships who might be passing through on the way back from an alien engine upgrade, but we're alone out here and we know for certain we can only take on one of them at a time. The Potemkin will be in the neighborhood, maybe we can get her or another ship interested in a hunt."

Kirk waited. The side of his leg was hot where it rested against Spock's. It was making him overheat. 

"You are uncomfortable," Spock said.

"I'm fine."

Spock picked up the padd again and scrolled through the Vulcan Archive entry about the First Federation.

"Strange. They are not heavily into trade. Or historically they have not been."

Kirk took the padd away from him and shut it off before setting it aside.

"A meld sounds so intriguing to me that I'm having trouble not knowing what your difficulty is." Kirk stared at the side of the monitor hanging over the desk. "Forget I mentioned you being akin to crew, or psych profiles. As your friend I need to know."

Kirk waited, finally said, "Is it your dual nature that makes you not like it?"

"Indirectly." Spock sounded older.

Spock steepled his fingers in his lap, inhaled, and sighed. Kirk smiled sadly at the sound of it.

"Vulcan children begin disciplines in earnest at the age of five. I did not have the mind for it. Or not in the way it was taught. I have much less difficulty with it now, so perhaps I was simply not developed enough at that time."

Kirk waited. If Spock gave up, he'd let it go this time.

Spock started to speak, then stopped. His lips closed.

Kirk patted Spock's leg and stood up. "I can guess the rest. Melds to make you more Vulcan."

Spock looked away. 

Kirk pulled on his command demeanor. "Events you had no control over aren't shameful, Spock."

"Logically. No." Spock's voice was raspy. "And logically, my parents wanted me to think like a Vulcan."

Kirk's gut felt hot. But Spock didn't need his anger. Spock still stared off to the side, head positioned like someone who'd just been struck and was still too stunned by it to move. Kirk forced his anger down, put compassion in the front of his mind, and put his hand on Spock's cheek to turn his face toward him.

Kirk said, "I think I see better why you were capable of running away. And I bet your parents are utterly incapable of seeing it."

Spock's shoulders relaxed. 

"Your understanding is more significant than is logical."

"You may spend your days in pursuit of inner disciplines, but you are still a social animal, Spock." 

Kirk withdrew his hand, letting his thumb drift over Spock's cheek.

Kirk said, "I'm going to chase down my first and prep for the all heads meeting. Now that things are quiet, I should pretend we have a command hierarchy instead of a dictatorship."

Spock's face shifted. Kirk hoped it was the hint of a smile.

\-------- 8888 --------

The ship was at a full halt relative to the relay, so Kirk didn't mind drawing away the full attention of the bridge crew, with the exception of Gunner, who would monitor for anything incoming.

Kirk reviewed the evidence for the strange engines on the Rebel Colonist ships. He let his officers toss the information around even though he'd already decided why the ships were passing through this sector. 

Kirk said, "Can we reasonably hunt for more Rebel ships and avoid engaging if we're outnumbered?"

"No," Fairfeather said. "We're slower than they are by a third to half of a warp. We can't get close enough to ID without getting chased down in turn."

Kirk hated giving up. His jaw hurt to imagine doing so. "We have a probe we could put to better use."

"But only one," Gall said. 

Kirk said, "If we have to abandon it to avoid a losing fight that would be acceptable."

Kirk pushed off the rail and paced to the viewscreen, which showed a still night sky with the haze of an arm of the galaxy diagonally across the upper right corner.

Riley said, "Will the Spitfire return when they've finished their errand?"

Kirk didn't turn around. "They might." He couldn't bear to imagine his ship was useless out here. He turned around. "We are on patrol. That was the last official order we got. We're going to continue to do that."

There were nods and one worrisome stare from Riley.

Comm put his hand to his ear and said, "Potemkin's science officer is hailing you, sir."

Kirk went over to the communications console and leaned over it, nodded to have the connection made.

After greetings the voice on the other end said, "This is Lt. Commander Gert of the Potemkin. I was informed that you had asked about our modeling."

"I had asked why you suspected the star system you are heading for is home to a Rebel Colonist base."

Riley stepped over. Kirk stared at him as he talked.

Gert said, "I had my computing staff design a model of the ongoing computer virus spread. Turns out you can plot a relationship network for past ship and port interactions based on the ongoing movement of that computer virus."

Kirk raised his head. "That's brilliant, Commander. Can you send us the model?"

"You want the model itself?"

"Yes."

"I can send it in a longer transmission. If you really want. It's pretty sophisticated, and I know you don't have much computing power or expertise on a ship like yours."

Kirk gave Riley a look, composed his voice to sound pleasant. "We'll manage, Commander. I'll turn you back over to my communications officer to arrange the transmission."

Kirk dismissed the department heads and the first split shift took over the bridge. The transmission completed and Comm handed Kirk a tape. Kirk handed it to Rand and told her to take it to his quarters to have Spock work on it.

Riley started to protest. Kirk waved Rand on and pulled Riley aside. 

Kirk whispered to him, "Lieutenant, he wrote the damn virus. We have on this ship the foremost expert in how it will spread. Of course I gave him the model."

Riley stood straight. "I didn't realize that, sir."

Kirk let his voice return to normal, not liking to seem secretive in front of the bridge crew. "Realize that, officially, it was my doing. Just so that's straight."

Riley's brow grew confused. "Really, Commander?"

"Yes, really." Kirk feigned insult.

After shift Kirk returned to his quarters to find Spock at the monitor, padd in hand.

Spock said, "I hope it is acceptable that I asked engineering for computing assistance?"

Kirk smiled. "Yes, of course." He sat on Spock's bunk and waited patiently for a report rather than sleep.

"They have made some miscalculations. The virus will outrun itself under certain circumstances, resulting in a lull in additional transmission. This cycle will recover and repeat as installations recover and interact again."

"Or partially recover," Kirk said. "And then they will pass on a mutated version, with different behavior."

"Indeed. That is also not accommodated well by the model."

"Can you alter the model?"

"I am doing so now. But you must rest. You are leaving yourself barely three hours of sleep for a twenty-four hour period, which is insufficient."

Kirk grinned and kicked off his boots. "I'm taking your bunk in that case.."

Kirk lay back in his uniform with his hands interlocked over his abdomen and Spock lowered the lights. 

Kirk woke to darkness punctuated by the glow from the monitor. Spock appeared as a cold statue in the low bluish light. Kirk rolled over and hugged the pillow. It smelled intimately of Spock. He felt a rush of affection and arousal and hugged the pillow tighter. He felt silly and made a scoffing noise. The object of his desire was right there at the desk. 

"Are you all right, James?"

Kirk's voice was muffled and dismissive. "Yes."

"Are you unaware that I can sense your emotions?"

Kirk turned his head so he wasn't speaking into the pillow. "This cabin is too small."

Spock moved the monitor aside and stood up.

Kirk said, "Keep working. Don't bother with me." 

Spock stood beside the bunk, making Kirk's gut flutter. Lack of sleep was stealing his control. He shouldn't let himself get to this state.

Spock's voice was low. "I do not comprehend your desire."

"It just is, Spock. Go back to work." Kirk turned his head again, frowned. "What about your own?"

"I do not comprehend it, either." His voice became dismayed. In the darkness the subtleties of his speech were easier to pick out.

Kirk twisted just his upper body, put his head on his bent arm. He wondered at himself, lying here with his arousal pressed into the thin mattress instead of satisfying it. This was the only quiet the ship was guaranteed to have for a while.

"How's the model coming?" Kirk asked.

"I have two possible solutions and am determining if there are other factors I can use to distinguish between them. So far with no success."

Talking shop drained Kirk's desire. He sat up. 

Spock stood over him, limned by the light of the monitor. "I do not wish to interrupt your sleep period."

"I'm either going seduce you or talk about the model. Your choice."

"One of those is considerably more productive than the other."

The darkness felt protective. "I don't agree. One of them would get my mind off you for a while. That's productive too. But show me the model."

Kirk had a gut aching premonition that he was going to regret not pulling Spock down onto the bunk right then and there. But he was a man of duty first, and couldn't be otherwise.

Spock returned to the desk, turned the monitor, and began explaining his changes.

"I didn't look at the original," Kirk said, interrupting. "It's twenty minutes to shift. Show me the two solutions."

Kirk yawned as the star charts came up, side by side. Kirk didn't even know his monitor would produce that kind of display.

Spock said, "I am going to force you to use some of second shift for sleep, James."

"Good. I won't argue. Or I won't argue right now."

Kirk said, "Both solutions are poorly charted I see. You and Potemkin are pulling the solution toward a star system. What if they aren't at a star system but hanging out in poorly explored space?"

"Star systems provide much needed energy, as well as navigational reference, critical in a loosely organized group."

"I'll trust you on that."

"The second solution is similar to open space in that the star is dead and cold and provides no energy."

Kirk rubbed his tired eyes. "Damn." Then after a pause. "Sorry. Not your fault the model resolves two ways. But it makes it harder to convince the Potemkin to follow our lead."

Kirk brought the lights up and blinked painfully. "Package the revised model up and have Comm send it back to the Potemkin's science officer as well as the other ships in the vicinity. And send the coordinates of both resolutions to Nav." Kirk gave Spock a proud look. "I wish I could see Lt. Commander Gert's face when he receives that model."

"Do you wish me to continue working on it?"

Kirk went to the head and washed his face in cold water. "No. I want you in engineering. We need to get the board green lighted as much as possible. Chief Long isn't going to get her warp core shutdown." He dried his face, feeling refreshed. "And thanks, Spock. I don't know what I'd do without you here."


	30. Debris, Part 2

Kirk sat on the bridge staring at the two plotted courses on the nav display. One of them was four days travel, ending at the edge of a wispy nebula. The other was seven and a half days almost straight up from the galactic plane, at a dead star system reported to have at least one planet, but perhaps more. It had never been charted.

Chief Long came to the bridge to argue for re-annealing the warp field coils before heading out again.

"It doesn't gain us enough to get a quarter more of a warp right now, Chief," Kirk said.

"What's the hurry?"

"I don't like sitting when I could be doing something." And, Kirk thought, Starfleet command might get the idea that more war was a good idea.

Long said, "The coils will continue to degrade, just so you know."

"Are we at risk of breakage if we get knocked around?"

"Not yet."

"What if we get really knocked around?"

"Then anything on this ship could break. Oh, and Commander, we need to resupply at some point, too," Long said.

"Now you sound like my Yeoman. But tell me, Chief, which of these two star systems would you choose for a base for a rebellion?"

"The nebula is useful for blocking sensors."

"Don't need to block sensors in an uncharted system where no one is going to look." Kirk sat forward, rubbed his chin. "You know, both might actually be bases."

"In which case, we should investigate the closer one."

"Too practical. The First Federation engines make the farther one more suspicious. Nav, send that course to Helm. And Chief, if we go to maximum warp, can you still green light my board, except for the warp coils, that is? By the end of the day?"

"You're a task master, Commander."

Kirk sat back, tall in the center chair. "I don't demand any more of you than I do of myself."

"We'll do our best."

\------- 8888 --------

"It is twenty hundred hours," Spock said.

"You did this yesterday." Kirk wasn't doing anything particularly useful. He was reading the few feeds they were still receiving. As they moved farther away from the galactic plane, the feeds had grown sparse.

A new item arrived. Gossip, not official, that Admiral Coyran had been placed on leave pending investigation into seditious activities. Kirk read the item aloud.

"Damn. I suspect he's been set up. And that's a very bad sign for Starfleet Command."

"Yeoman Rand is correct that you have excessive faith in your judgement of character."

"Do I, Spock?" Kirk grinned. "Does that include my judgement of you?"

Spock raised a brow and returned his attention to his scanner. Kirk scrolled. Hoping for more information to appear when it updated.

"It is twenty hundred and five hours," Spock said.

Kirk huffed. "Are you going to do this every day?"

"If you combine a three hour rest period during second shift with three hours from second split shift, that is a reasonable amount of rest for a human in a role such as yours."

"I've got you, I've got Chapel. And Rand," Kirk complained. "I feel cornered."

Spock stared at him.

"I can be really stubborn, Spock," Kirk warned him. No new communications arrived. He scrolled back and read some of the past entries more carefully.

Spock continued to stare.

As annoyed as he was, Kirk was pleased Spock was feeling this confident. "I'm going to lose, aren't I?" He smiled as he said this, feeling light, which wasn't what he expected to feel.

Spock said, "This isn't about control. This is about the safety of the ship."

"Who are you taking lessons in first officer from? Certainly not Riley."

"I am merely being logical. We are operating on the envelope of safety in our pursuit of the Rebel base as a single ship. There are factors within our control that impact that risk, and the most significant one is your mental condition."

Kirk pretended to read the feed, but there was still nothing new. 

Spock said, "It is twenty hundred and ten hours."

Kirk considered getting angry, but could feel he wouldn't manage it and risked embarrassing himself. 

Spock said, "One could view it as a simple matter of weighing priorities."

"I am being stubborn. That's an important priority." But Kirk stood up and went to the head to wash up.

\------- 8888 --------

Six days past. Kirk sat on the bridge. He was surprisingly well rested. The crew had fallen into a high-functioning routine, but this shift felt extra keyed up.

"Encountering asteroids ahead, Captain."

"Those aren't on the few charts we have."

"No, sir."

"Slow to impulse. Let's take a look around." Kirk hit the comm switch for engineering. "Chief, if you are through with my Vulcan, escort him to the bridge."

Her voice came through the comm. "What if I'm making use of him?"

"You got by without him for months of this mission. Send him up anyway."

The lift opened. Jones nodded to Kirk and hit the switch to close the doors after Spock stepped out.

"Take the backup scanner station," Kirk said, pointing at the station behind Gunner.

Everyone on the bridge turned and watched Spock step to the station and power it up. Kirk looked around at the gazes. No one spoke. Gall and engineering were the first to turn back to their boards. Toyvan remained pried backward in his seat, eyes wide.

Kirk said, "Nav. Helm. Eyes on boards. Asteroids are tough on the hull."

Riley stepped down beside the center seat, eyes sharply questioning.

"The sooner we spot the enemy, the more likely it is we'll get out in one piece," Kirk said.

An hour passed in complete silence as they moved through the field on impulse.

Toyvan said, "It's mining debris, Captain. It's rough debris. Not commercial, large scale. These miners were going after only the pure veins."

"Mining family, Toyvan? You followed in the footsteps of blowing things up?"

"Yes, sir. Proud tradition."

Kirk wondered if this was enough evidence to get the Potemkin to divert their way. Ranger had stopped receiving any of the local encoded feed, but Kirk assumed that by now Potemkin had found nothing at their target location and hoped they had already diverted this way.

They also hadn't received word about Spitfire arriving at Starbase 7. Kirk had imagined the public news feeds displaying the captured ships, and how much that would ease the call to war. Without confirmation of that, he still worried as much as ever.

The glances over at Spock eased as the shift passed. Unless they intended to mutiny over it, there wasn't much the crew could do.

As shift wound down, Kirk wandered past each station, stopping beside Spock second to last. The displays at secondary scan were now completely different. Streams of raw data were overlaid with waveforms containing sensor bounces.

Kirk said, "Get the board reprogrammed to your liking?"

"Mostly. I am switching it out to the default now."

Kirk moved to the Gunner's station. "Maybe tomorrow we'll find something for you to shoot at, Mr. Toyvan."

"Have odds on that, sir?"

"Sixty point eight to one," Spock replied when Kirk did not.

Kirk turned. "That high?"

Spock hesitated. "The debris fields have a definite downward spread pattern, as if they have been pushed intentionally out of the way and into the path of anyone approaching."

"Nav, can we get out of this field?"

"We can bypass the column of asteroids at this point in our course, sir. It keeps widening up ahead, however and the diversion will become greater."

Kirk ordered Nav to take them wide and return to warp, paralleling the previous course.

When second shift came on, Kirk remained on the bridge along with Spock on the secondary scanner.

When Kirk paced by him for the third time, Spock said, "If you are going take a rest break, Captain, you should do so now."

Kirk started at hearing his bridge title from Spock, but gave him a firm look. "I wasn't going to take a rest break."

Spock stared back. "Would you like the estimate for encountering anything in the next four hours?"

"No."

The second shift bridge crew were glancing at them, and each other. Comm remained bent over his board, but shook his head.

Kirk returned to his seat. They didn't need more little displays like that.

\------- 8888 --------

It was twelve hours later, at the end of second split shift that Scanner said, "Enemy ship, mark 4."

"Full stop. Have they seen us?"

"They have not altered course. They appear to be fine-grain scanning the larger asteroids."

"Are you sure it's an enemy, and not a mining ship?"

The viewscreen zoomed in on the typical Colonist Rebel vessel lacking the spherical engine.

Kirk said, "That's not a mining ship. Go to red alert. Shields up. Do we have an estimate for Potemkin's location, Comm?"

"A wide estimate."

"Do a sweep broadcast across the sector we just exited. Compress the message down as far as you can. Enemy located and the coordinates. And take the scans we have so far and run them through the mapping computer. Launch the probe to broadcast those behind us once it's clear of the debris field."

"Yes, sir." Comm's hands flew over the board.

"Are there more enemy ships?" Kirk stood and walked by both scanner stations. Spock was making adjustments, calibrating something based on the bounce from the enemy ship. He was too careful and too methodical, but he was only the backup, and he was still learning.

The debris field had grown denser and broader the farther away from the galactic plane they went. They were staring upward at a champagne-glass-shaped asteroid field and just getting tiny sensor glimpses into it due to the high ferrous metal content.

"No ships visible at this time."

Toyvan had returned to the bridge. "Should we take them out, sir? One less Colonist vessel."

"I think we need a big ship that can take the lot of them unawares. Let's reverse."

Minutes later, Spock said, "Something on scan behind us."

"What is it?"

Spock gave the coordinates to Scanner who shook his head.

Something buffeted the ship, pelting it with debris.

"One of the asteroids exploded," Nav said.

Kirk let go of the railing he'd used to keep his feet. "Well, there goes the hope of taking them unawares."

Toyvan had taken over the Gunner station. "Can I hit them, sir?"

"Spock, what did you see on the sensors?"

"A radio signal activating something electronic that sent out a pulse," Spock said. "I apologize for not understanding what it was."

"The asteroids are rigged to be a mine field," Kirk said. "Probably should have expected that. Damage report?"

Engineering said, "Minor damage to the starboard sensor array. Minor hull damage which appears to all have been dealt with by the automatic sealant. No hull breach is apparent on exterior views or interior pressure readings."

"The enemy ship is retreating into the debris field, Captain," Toyvan said, voice strained.

"Can you hit her from here?"

"Do I have permission to fire, sir?"

"Yes."

Phasers lashed out, knocking asteroids into a spin, striking the enemy ship's shields.

Helm inched them forward at Kirk's hand signal. He didn't want to disrupt Toyvan's intense concentration on his displays. The phaser banks recharged, fired again. 

"Direct hit," Scanner said. "But they still have maneuvering power and are now out of view."

"Mr. Toyvan, how do mining explosions get rigged?"

Toyvan sat back with a loud release of pent up breath. His mind still seemed elsewhere as he spoke. "With a drill and a long cable that hangs out and acts as an antenna to the fuse circuit which triggers the explosive material. The force is trapped so the explosion is usually spectacular."

"Spock, see if you can detect those on any other asteroids. Scanner, I want you to watch for enemy ships." Kirk watched the spreading debris on the viewscreen. Helm made another adjustment to avoid being struck by a toppling boulder which went by close enough to see the pits on the rock surface.

Kirk sat down. "I think we need to retreat and wait for some big guns."

"Likely days away, sir," Gall said. She also had taken over her station for the alert.

"I know that, Ensign."

Kirk said, "Scanner, Gunner, if we retreat, are we going to run into anything?"

"Our pride," Toyvan said. "Sir."

Kirk grinned. "I agree with you Mr. Toyvan. But discretion and valor and all that."

Spock said, "I have detected three sizable asteroids that have antenna cables. The starboard sensor array continues to be intermittent."

"Pass those coordinates to helm."

They continued to reverse at a canted angle, keeping the denser forward sensors trained where enemy ships were most likely to appear.

Long minutes ticked by. 

Nav said, "Sir . . . " His hands flew over the board. "I received a passive navigational pingback. But it's gone now. There's no active beacon that I can detect." He made a noise of annoyance and froze, turned his head with a jerk. "It's the Sanchez, sir."

Kirk pushed out of the chair and came up between navigation and helm. His eyes uselessly searched the empty spaces between the asteroids ahead of them. He felt like he could see through them, but including the long distances there were a lot more hiding places than clear views.

Kirk said, "They disabled the beacon, but didn't know enough to dismantle the passive circuit."

"Apparently, sir."

"How far ahead to the dead star?"

"About a sixteenth of a light year, sir."

Kirk was breathing fast. 

Scanner said, "This debris field appears to be the remains of a single planetoid formerly in orbit around the star. Blown up again and again into smaller pieces over many years."

The bridge crew repeatedly turned to glance at Kirk, hands glued to control boards. Kirk heard Captain Seyburn saying bug bit me, couldn't let it go. Kirk just wanted a glimpse of the Sanchez. He didn't want to fight her. She was too big.

"Helm, take us 264 mark 4."

Riley said, "We're going in?"

"We're getting a closer look." Kirk's mind was churning with possibilities. The idea that his old shipmates were this close and he was going to sit and wait would make him crawl out of his skin. He'd not worried about them as often in the last month and felt guilty for that. But to do this, he needed to assuage his crew. 

"If we get into trouble, we can hide in the asteroid field just like they are, Lieutenant Riley," Kirk said, hearing distraction in his own voice. 

"That will work if we're not outnumbered."

"We're much smaller than the Sanchez, that's a big advantage when playing cat and mouse." 

After weaving their way out of the spreading debris field, Nav said, "We're in the clear, sir," 

"Go to warp 3 parallel to our previous course until we are inside the dead system's orbital plane. And remain on red alert."

The tension on the bridge grew palpable.

"Commander," Riley said. He stood like he tended to during stressful moments, with his arms interlocked behind is back. "The wait won't be that long for a larger vessel to arrive and push the odds in our favor."

Kirk heard Seyburn's voice again. What he said to that nagging memory, and his first officer was, "If you cannot do your job, remove yourself from the bridge."

Kirk knew Riley's expression would be stunned. He saw Riley drop his arms to his sides, but didn't look at him to confirm his expression. Kirk conceded and found an excuse for his actions. "Lieutenant, we are already in trouble. Sixteenth of a light year isn't much of a head start. I'd rather not let them get better organized." He turned to Spock. "Keep mapping which asteroids are rigged to blow up. We're likely going to need to know that."

"Yes, Captain." Spock sounded untouchably calm. It was a balm to Kirk, and hopefully also to the rest of the bridge crew.

The ship entered warp and the tactical display adjusted multiple times a second, trying and failing to cope with the number of objects that were meaningful.

"Entering star system orbital plane, dropping to impulse," Nav said hours later.

The bridge had grown inured somewhat to the stress. They were now obsessively focussed.

"There she is," Helm said. "Zooming in."

The USS Sanchez jumped into view, grainy and dark. The screen enhanced with other scanner data, creating a false reality filled with light.

"That's her," Kirk said, feeling less satisfied than he expected.


	31. Debris, Part 3

"Three other ships besides the Sanchez, sir." Nav said. "They are in a stationary orbit around a moon."

Spock said, "Two of the Colonist ships are registering random power fluctuations."

"Are they?" Kirk said with keen interest. "Keep an eye below us, Scanner, in the debris field. I don't want any surprises. And keep up with the mapping and send it to Helm and our probe."

"Yes, sir." Scanner's voice revealed high adrenaline.

"Four ships, sir," Riley said, sounding calmly defeated.

"Four ships," Kirk echoed while his mind churned. Strategies were invading his thoughts, unbidden. 

Kirk said, "Which two ships have the power fluctuations?"

"The two hanging slightly back."

"Perfect," Kirks said, not meaning to speak aloud. "But we really should back off and hole up."

Riley's head fell to his chest in relief.

"We're being hailed, sir. By the Sanchez."

Kirk turned to Gall. Stared. Sat back in his seat. "Comm, send a series of tight beam transmissions with our current status back the way we came. Make the enemy think we're a scout ship for a larger flotilla. Then give us a connection, but watch closely for my signal to cut it."

Tense minutes later, Gall said, "On screen, sir."

The bridge of the Sanchez came into view. 

A familiar figure in a civilian tunic with hand-drawn braid sat forward in the Sanchez's center seat. "James?" he said in mocking surprise.

"Gary." Kirk's voice was weak.

"Captain Gary. Please."

Kirk stood up as if to approach the figure on the screen, tried to accept what he was seeing.

"They gave you a command, James? The desperation must be running higher than even I expected." Gary sounded too much like himself.

Kirk wanted to kill the connection and regroup without Gary's perceptive eye on him. But he needed to appear to do so for the right reason.

"You apparently stole a command," Kirk said, sounding angry even though he hadn't had time for anger to penetrate his shock. "Where's Captain Yung?"

Gary's expression became amused. He shook his head. "Oh, James. Your crew know what a fuck-up you are? How you always get demoted right after you finally manage to do anything right?"

With his left hand, Kirk signaled for the connection to be cut. The screen returned to the view of the Sanchez.

"Friend of yours, sir?" Riley blurted.

"Yes, best friend, no less. Went through academy together." Kirk put a hand on the chair arm. It felt solid.

"Spock," Kirk said. "At full impulse how much propellent would a torpedo need to stay just ahead of us if fully loaded with explosive and double dispersant?"

"Point four eight zero of standard charge."

"How did he know that?" Fairfeather said.

Kirk spoke rapidly. "He did it in his head. Comm, give me the torpedo bay. Torpedo bay, load four torpedoes with a full explosive and double dispersant charge and of those load two with point four eight zero of standard propellent and two with point four . . . ?" Kirk looked up at Spock in question.

"Point four nine zero," Spock supplied.

"And two with point four nine zero of a standard propellent charge. Load the slower tubes first and be ready to launch simultaneously on my command. Toyvan, see where the collar on the Sanchez's primary hull has a seam that matches underneath to the primary hull strut? I want you to draw a line right on that seam, top side, with one sixth phaser power, on my signal."

"That won't get through the shields."

Kirk ignored this. "Before I give that signal, I want all fire directed at the two right-hand smaller ships. All of it. Ignore everything else. Helm, I want you to execute a straight run at that large asteroid in front of us at point eight one of full impulse. Then I want you to dive toward the ship on the lower left and execute a continuous roll to spread out the fire we're going to be taking. I want you to pass as close below that left hand ship, belly up, as you possibly can."

Spock calmly said, "The shields will interact if we pass closer than four hundred and five meters."

"Pass at five hundred meters and then evasive immediately. Full impulse, pull up and aim for the moon's horizon. Got it? On my signal. BUT. If Sanchez advances. Plan is off. Immediate evasive to the asteroid field below."

Kirk sat back in his seat with calm motions, put on a cocky air. "Toyvan, she won't have shields when I give you the signal."

Toyvan's voice was quiet and doubtful. "Yes sir." 

Kirk imagined his gunner was trying to not make any bets with any of the other bridge crew on odds he didn't like.

Kirk said, "On screen."

Gary looked annoyed but he was laughing. Beside him, arms crossed, leg's apart, stood Urso Prince, formerly Captain's yeoman.

"What happened, Gary?" Kirk asked, letting himself sound hurt, which was easy.

"You are so painfully naive, James. Full of book learning and not actual life."

"I like to think of myself as full of loyalty to a cause."

"Oh God. Please, not a Kirk lecture. I've sat through way more than my share in this life. I don't intend to ever sit through another." Gary turned to someone off screen. "So, little Jimmy Kirk, where is your posse? My scout tells me none has materialized. Yet here you are stalling." He held up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of confusion.

"I'm not stalling, I'm trying to understand."

"I know you too well. You're incapable of understanding. Anything. Come on, James. You didn't understand Professor Bakeman in history of poly sci, you didn't understand why I dumped you despite your begging me to take you back . . ." Gary displayed all his teeth. "You don't understand this . . ." He gestured at his own bridge. ". . . when it is so obvious to anyone else."

A preternatural calm came over Kirk. "I freely admit that I don't understand. Where is Captain Yung?"

"You're like a three year old. The kind who insists on tagging along unwanted with his older brothers." He laughed. "You really here all alone in that cramped tin can of a ship? Against this? That would be so like you. The little hero. And me the windmill."

Kirk let his pain through. "You know what's hard, Gary? I see you now. This is still you, sitting there."

"But you can't understand why."

"No. And I don't know why I've been such an idiot. So. Why did you bother saving my life, especially given how much it cost you?"

Gary grew red. "You're still stalling for no reason. What's the walking library shelf going to do when faced with hot thrashing reality? Huh? I'd really like to see."

Kirk feigned boredom. The Sanchez hadn't moved. Kirk willed it to stay in place so his plan could work. Taunted sufficiently, Gary's ego would resist meeting them halfway to keep up his superior appearance.

"Helm. Now." Kirk said.

Fairfeather's fingers were shaking. The ship surged.

Kirk gave the signal to cut the connection. Gary's expression grew thoughtful just as it blipped out and the tactical battle display returned.

"Point eight one of impulse, sir."

"Just execute the plan, Helm," Kirk said in a soothing chant. "Nothing else matters. Just execute the plan."

The Sanchez's phasers lashed out, striking the asteroid, making it spin, shards flying. Helm adjusted to remain behind it, fingers stiff but accurate. 

They rushed the asteroid and veered past it, phasers raked the top of the ship, making it shudder. Helm put them into a roll. Gunner struck out at the closer of the two Colonist ships. It turned slowly downward. The left-hand Colonist ship struck at Ranger's forward shields, which held steady. Sanchez struck again.

"Slow to point seven eight, Captain." Spock's voice was commanding. "To account for phaser bank recovery time."

"Helm," Kirk said, gripping his chair arms. Spock saw it all: the torpedoes, the friendly fire. Kirk couldn't let the happy thrill of that distract him. He stowed it for later.

"Acknowledged," Helm said.

Phasers struck them again, a glancing blow. The bridge smelled of high emotion. The lights dimmed. Gunner fired again, at the other Colonist ship this time, which was trying to back away.

"Bottom shields at thirty percent," Nav said. "We can only take one more solid hit on that side."

The fully-functional Colonist ship loomed on the screen, growing to fill it. It was pulled up on evasive. Helm finished the roll, flattened out, mirroring the enemy vessel's pitch, accelerated to avoid a collision. Phasers focused in on Ranger's weakened bottom shields. The Colonist ship's running lights streaked by on the screen leaving retinal trails. A silent explosion bloomed out from it, buffeted the Ranger.

"Evasive!" Kirk shouted, but it was already being executed. "Go to full impulse. Show them what we've really got." He hit the comm switch for the torpedo bay. "Stand by torpedoes. Helm, adjust negative point two five, but continue evasive."

"Spock?"

"Thirty seven seconds."

Kirk said, "Thirty four seconds to launch, Torpedo Bay. Helm, flatten out just for the launch, then follow right behind the torpedoes, continuing evasive. I'll signal when to pull up."

Two torpedoes slid away, then the second two joined them, catching up to the first, leading the Ranger along at the end of a streamer parade arcing toward the weak gravity well of the moon.

The Ranger took a phaser hit to the aft shields. 

"Glancing blow. Shields holding at thirty percent."

Kirk almost relaxed hearing that. "Mr. Toyvan, you ready?"

Kirk had to look over at him. He was too intent to reply.

Just over seven minutes later, the torpedoes lit the dusty haze of thin atmosphere on the moon in a cascade of columnar explosions. The enhancement that made everything look like daylight solarized as it adjusted for each blast.

"Evasive?" Helm nearly shouted.

"No. Stay the course another thirty seconds."

Kirk said, "Pull up, Helm. Gunner, Fire as soon as target is locked."

The Ranger turned over, pressing Kirk into his seat so that his head felt incredibly heavy. The Sanchez's upper hull curved down into view, upside down. The ejected cloud of ionized moon dust impacted the Sanchez, her shields sizzled and failed. Ranger's topside phaser banks lashed out, one than the other. The first shot went off the mark, lancing between the nacelle and the secondary hull. The second hit the mark with a crooked searing line across white metal, burning yellow at the edges like smoldering paper. The phaser beam that struck out at Ranger, cut off abruptly. The Sanchez's lights went off in a cascade. The emergency side beacons flickered on as she slid down out of view.

"Hit!" Nav said, sounding like an excited child.

"Our shields are back up, sir. Forty percent. We have hull damage on the port side, inner portals have been sealed in case of breach. Engineering is addressing it."

"Come around and finish off the other two. Fire at will, Mr. Toyvan. Try to leave enough function for life support. We can't take that many prisoners on board."

Toyvan's voice was loud and crisp. "Yes. Sir."

The closer ship was dealt with in the first barrage. Left drifting. The second took evasive out of the star system's plane and Ranger followed. Kirk wondered why the enemy wasn't heading downward to hide in the asteroid debris field.

"If she has full engines, we won't catch her," Nav said.

"Make those shots count, Mr. Toyvan."

Kirk turned his head. "Scanner, did Sanchez make orbit of that moon or will she slingshot?"

Spock replied, "She will be in an unstable elliptical orbit that will eventually resolve to an escape trajectory. But I estimate four days at the earliest."

Ranger was still careening to follow the remaining Colonist ship. Toyvan shook his head as another shot failed to penetrate the shields.

Kirk said, "Keep at them. They aren't at full capacity."

It took five more shots for the shields to fail. Ranger only took hits to her stronger forward shields.

"Careful now," Kirk said, leaning forward.

Despite the twisting maneuvers, Toyvan cut across the port side integrated warp nacelle with one phaser bank, then struck the impulse outflow bay with the second on low power.

"Aux power is likely in the same housing, sir. That sufficient?"

"Like a surgeon, Mr. Toyvan."

Toyvan smiled, dropped his gaze to reset his board as the Ranger reversed course. Bridge crew congratulated each other, relaxed back from their tense vigil over their boards.

A diffuse blast of yellow-white filled the viewscreen, caused the forward sensors to shutter to black in a flicker.


	32. Big Guns

"What was that?" Someone blurted.

"Evasive, in any direction perpendicular to that beam," Kirk ordered.

The ship twisted, surged, twisted again. The bridge fell quiet again.

Kirk said, "That was a very powerful shot from very far away. Can we get tactical?"

The display changed, showing the star system, black at the core, and the three orbiting planets and eleven moons. The shot originated from a planet on the other side of the star system.

"That far away?" Kirk said. 

"That's a hell of a gun," Toyvan said.

"No wonder the enemy ship lead us up out of the star system. They were exposing us to those guns. Scanner, put something on screen."

Scanner said, "The dead star is blocking sensor scans of that area of the star system."

"How long for a shot to make it to us from there?"

"Six minutes, twenty point one seconds, sir," Scanner replied.

"That gives us a lot of time to get out of the way. But it will take as long for us to scan and get a signal back as it will for them to recognize we're there and get a shot to our position. Helm, head seventy-three mark ten and get us clear of the dead star's horizon so we can get a visual and infrared reading. That's going to have to do for starters. Even one hit from that gun will put us out of business."

"Putting visual on screen, sir."

"Get us back below the horizon, Helm."

"Look at that," Kirk said. On screen was an aged supercargo vessel. The port and starboard edges had been lined with bright new Fesarian sphere engines.

"If I may, Captain," Spock said. "We are not in a safe location. The gravity well of the collapsed dead star will bend the phaser fire half a degree farther than we are currently situated behind it."

Kirk looked over at Spock. "Helm. Get us more out of harm's way. Thank you, Spock."

The viewscreen switched to a navigational display until the maneuver was completed. Then the modified cargo vessel visual loop returned.

Kirk said, "I think we've found the last of the bot manufacturing plants." His voice dropped. "And likely the prisoners they captured for their technical knowledge. Status of the four ships we defeated?"

"The three intact ships are drifting or in unpowered orbit of the moon. Life support is at least half functional."

"Any life signs on the remains of the destroyed ship?"

"No, sir."

Kirk frowned. Someone stepped up on his right, which was uncommon. Spock stood there with hands loose at his sides.

Spock said, "May I enquire if you are considering further action?"

Kirk tried to not sound annoyed. "I don't know yet."

"I notice that once you conceive of a plan you have difficulty in not executing it."

The backs of Nav and Helm grow tense. 

"I resist executing plans if the odds are poor, Spock. Note that I let the Wasp be sucked into a gaseous planet rather than risk a rescue of it."

"True."

"Maybe the odds looked poor to you for that last set of maneuvers, but they didn't to me. I knew that if they had not bothered to disable the passive ID pingback that there was little chance they had gone to the much more arduously technical task of reprogramming the friendly-fire models to recognize the Colonist vessels. To fire upon us at all they had to either reprogram or disable that circuit. So I could safely assume it has simply been disabled. I recognized only two former Starfleet officers on that bridge. Five months is long enough to train a skillful person on the Gunner's station, but I happen to know Gary hates drills so the person in that position likely engaged the automatic targeting, which would keep firing at us, even when we passed behind the Colonist ship, since the friendly fire circuit wasn't there to override it. And I know Gary. Too well. I knew if I got his ego riled up, he'd let me take the battle to him, in a position where it kept his one fully functional ally in range of his phasers."

"Those many and varied assumptions must all fall in your favor for success."

Kirk held up a finger. "But they did. I also knew that once I'd forced them to destroy their own ship that Gary would be angry enough to chase us no matter what and we have better impulse speed than they do. The real question was, how virus-hobbled were the other two ships? And that was answered as we approached. They tried to retreat as soon as the firing started."

The bridge crew had turned to listen.

Kirk glanced around. "Eyes on boards, please," he said kindly.

They all turned back to their stations.

Spock nodded and turned away.

"I didn't mean you," Kirk said. 

Spock returned.

Kirk glanced at Riley on his left then at Spock on his right.

"Mr. Riley, thoughts on the cargo vessel?"

"Why haven't they warped away?"

"Good question." Kirk rubbed his chin. "Either the ship isn't completely outfitted to do so yet, despite looking like it is. Or they don't want to leave without their support ships and don't realize they've lost them all, although they'll determine that soon enough."

Riley said, "Why were the support ships on the dark side of the system's star from the cargo vessel?"

Kirk said, "Must have been intentional. They had plenty of time to position themselves that way to fight. Maybe they didn't want to risk getting hit with those big guns."

"A ship that size is difficult to maneuver at sub-warp speeds," Riley said. "And it needs open space outbound from the system to warp away, which it has parked where it is."

"So, either they don't think much of the threat of us alone, or they didn't want to fight near it. Scanner, how's that cargo ship's shielding? Never mind, we don't know since we didn't get an active scan."

"It's likely merely navigational shielding on the bulk of it," Riley said. "But the Fesarian engines have their own shielding based on our past encounter."

"And we can assume the guns are shielded," Kirk said.

Riley said, "And we can't take a single hit."

"With full power to the forward shields we could sustain one hit to that area of the vessel," Spock said.

Riley said, "Whose side are you on?"

Spock raised a brow.

Kirk smiled, but it faded. "I'm worried about retribution on the prisoners. I'm worried that ship is going to warp away. It could be days, most of a week, worst case, before the Potemkin arrives. Assuming the cargo ship can reach the same maximum warp as the modified Colonist ships, we won't be able to keep track of it for more than half a day if we try and follow."

"More than that," Riley said. "The linear arrangement of the engines will multiply the warp field into a sinusoidal oblong which will give them the potential for something approaching warp six."

Kirk turned in his seat. "That huge thing, you think, could reach warp six?"

"Done right, yes. The bulk of it becomes an advantage."

"Whose side are you on, Mr. Riley?" Kirk teased.

Riley shrugged. "There's nothing we can do. Is there?"

Kirk put his hand on his chin. "I'm still thinking." 

Kirk sensed Spock and Riley looking at each other over his head.

Another burst of yellow-white shot across the Nav and Gunner screens.

"They're taking pot shots at us." Kirk shook his head. "I'm more worried about the prisoners than I am that the ship might get away. What metal's that hull made of?"

"We didn't get a scan," Riley said.

"Databank, Mr. Riley. What ship is it?"

Nav responded. "It's the Himalaya, sir. Commissioned seventy three years ago and retired nine years ago. It is triple hulled. Outer hull is composed of a nano stranded crystalline alloy of titanium, aluminum, iron, and nickel, with a sheath of carbon fiber to boost the shielding, although that looked pretty battered so it likely has weak spots. Inner sandwiching is separated by standard non-structural sealant foam."

Riley stepped up to look over Nav's shoulder. "With the age of the ship, it might not seal properly any more in event of a hull breach."

"Gunner, how close do we have to be to cut into the outer hull?"

"You are hoping to rescue the prisoners. Right sir?" 

"Yes, Mr. Toyvan. The words triple hulled were mentioned."

"Yes, sir. We'd have to be within fifteen million miles."

"And it's not orbiting a planet. It's orbiting the star itself." Kirk said, looking over the visual. "So much for having something to shelter behind."

"You're getting ideas, sir?" Riley said.

Kirk sat straighter. "I usually do. But let's wait a few minutes to confirm what their recharge gap is on that gun. Although they may be avoiding revealing it."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Right now, Fairfeather?" Kirk shook his head. Discipline was never going to happen with this crew at the level he wanted. He had to be satisfied that they would step up when it mattered. 

"Fine. What is it?"

"Did you really date that guy?"

Kirk pinched the bridge of his nose. Dropped his hand. "No."

"Good. He seems like an ass."

"I drunkenly. Very drunkenly, propositioned him once. According to corroborating witnesses. I don't remember doing it."

"They made it up, sir. Clearly." She turned back to her station.

"You are too kind, Fairfeather. I'd like to claim I didn't really know him." His voice dropped. "But I do know better. If he wanted you as an ally, he knew how to keep you drawn in." 

Kirk contemplated the tactical display the computer had added to the visual of the Himalaya. "You are trying to distract me from strategizing."

"I actually wasn't, sir." She made some adjustments to her board with crisp movements. "I'd like to rescue the captive Starfleet personnel. That's the sort of thing I could write home about."

Kirk contemplated the display. "Shielded guns. Shielded engines. Vulnerable everywhere else, except we can't risk a hull breach. We need a full scan. Nav, call your replacement to the bridge, I want you and Scanner and Spock to work out a scan and evasive course that lets us return to pick up at least some of our scan bounce so we know where everyone and everything is on that ship, without putting this ship at undue risk. At this distance, hitting us is difficult unless we act predictable."

"And if she warps away?" Riley asked.

"If she does we'll try to follow as long as we can keep her in range. But if you're right, even Potemkin can't chase her down without risking their ship to an engine overheat. We'd have to find her again when it's possible to cut her off with multiple ships. But without support ships, life on Himalaya will get a lot harder. All the more reason to get the prisoners off, and quickly."

Ranger ran a random course, scanning eight times, then at the allotted time for the bounce to return, passed back through one of the scan points. The Himalaya shot far wide of their position.

Back behind the star, they reviewed the scans with the department heads on the bridge. 

"There are a few weak spots in the navigational shielding where we can beam through." Long pointed at the ship, adding highlights on the display.

"Look at all the bots," Riley said. 

"Many of them appear to be in a production line," Jones said. "Maybe they aren't finished."

The aft starboard section of the cargo ship showed rows of stacked goods and random items in between. And holes in the scan in roughly oval shapes in piles where scan-absorbing plate or finished bots in shells were stored. Hundreds of them. Maybe more. Kirk's lower chest cavity quivered unnervingly.

"Whoever goes aboard is going to have to fight a lot of bots," Gunner said.

Kirk looked up at Glissen, who didn't look unnerved. This was where her inexperience was a plus. For Kirk, at least.

"In a tight space like the ship passageways, you only have to fight a few of anything at a time." Kirk studied the display again. "Five hundred and forty life forms. We can assume the ones in the manufacturing area and adjacent to it are mostly prisoners. That's approximately forty four prisoners."

Kirk stepped away from the group toward the scanner stations. "Rescue is feasible. Although, it won't be costless. We're going to lose lives. Ours and some of the prisoners. But by the time Potemkin arrives the prisoners might all be dead, or the ship warped away." He drew in his lips. "If it were me prisoner, I'd rather be given a chance to fight against bad odds than remain a prisoner. I'm guessing at least the Starfleet personnel over there feel the same. The captured colonists I can't speak for as easily."

"But it's all just talk if we can't disable the guns." This was Chapel. She stood with her arms crossed up beside the lift doors.

"One gun, that's all we need to disable. After that we can out-maneuver her and stay on her vulnerable side. If we're inside her warp field when she engages, how much damage will we sustain?"

"Fully inside it, none," Long said. "We'll be stuck inside it, carried along. Theoretically, we could engage our own warp and if our field is strong enough, disengage from theirs, but based on their warp engine architecture and how much power they'd be bringing to bear to sustain it, I doubt we could erect our own field at all."

Kirk said, "Well, that would be one way of keeping them from escaping entirely. As long as we can safely get clear when they drop back out of warp."

Toyvan said, "How are we going to get that close? Their recharge cycle isn't long enough to slip close between shots."

Kirk said, "Ranger is not getting that close until the gun is taken out."


	33. Dodge and Burn

Kirk went to the Nav display and zoomed in on the topside gun. It had a large physical collar to protect the base that was coded as heavily shielded. Then beneath that, twenty four centimeters of outer hull and beneath that, four meters of sealant foam between that and the twelve centimeters of sandwiched hull plates. The inner hull gap was only foamed selectively around the original super structure. The many modifications to the ship created an even worse hodgepodge on scan than it did on visual.

The gun was in the dead center of the broad side of the ship with a large structure under it glowing on the scan, ready to fire. Kirk pointed to a spot aft of the gun. 

"If we start cutting here, as obliquely as possible, in the direction of the gun's powerplant. How long to get through the outer hull?"

Toyvan said, "That's almost ninety centimeters of cutting, and the navigational shields won't be knocked out on a ship that big, so we'll be losing phaser power to that. Every bit of movement will require more cutting. Half an hour of beam, at the very least. And we can't produce a continuous beam."

Kirk strolled the bridge. "Even on a random path at fifteen million kilometers distant, we're going to get hit trying that." He scratched his neck. "Those guns are an afterthought and the ship is heavily retrofitted. Let's list the vulnerabilities. For example, the lack of full foam on the inner hull gap leaves room to move around within the hull. Can we get in from the end and travel along it?"

His crew squinted at their displays. Frowned. 

"There is a lot of cabling and garbage on the scan," Scanner said. "I don't think the most inner hull seals anymore."

Kirk traced his finger along the gap, between struts and repaired plates. "If we could beam someone inside the inner hull, they could make their way to the gun's powerplant and disable it."

"That would be a suicide mission," Gunner said. 

Yes, Kirk thought, but it would work. He could see on the screen it would work. And he couldn't order someone to do it. He'd have to do it himself. He imagined the cramped space, running around obstacles, rifle in hand, checking for places that might provide some protection from the resulting blast. Timing his shot to the gap between recharge cycles in a desperate attempt to survive the powerplant exploding. It wouldn't even be the most dangerous mission he'd ever been on. But they'd have to get close enough to beam in and that would be risky as well.

Spock looked up from his station. "If we tune the phasers to the older alloy of the hull, reduce power and alternate banks to simulate continuous firing, we can cause the hull metal to bubble away more rapidly than Mr. Toyvan assumes, especially at the intended angle, as the beam will not encounter previously removed material."

"Time to get through the hull?"

"Seven point two four minutes."

Kirk turned to his gunner. "Mr. Toyvan?"

Toyvan shrugged. "I just shoot weapons for a living, sir."

Kirk said, "Engineering, tune the phaser banks to Spock's specifications."

"We're going to try it, sir?"

"Yes, Gunner, we are. I thought you liked shooting at things?"

"I do, sir. From a safe distance." Toyvan turned in his seat to gave Spock a suspicious glare.

Spock said, "I have no desire to die, Mr. Toyvan."

Toyvan turned back to his board. "Hm. I suppose you are stuck with our fate."

Kirk returned to his seat. He felt he'd been given a reprieve from an execution. "Stations, everyone. No offense to your abilities, Mr. Toyvan, but we're going to put the phasers on computer control. We don't want to penetrate the middle hull and we don't want to tire your trigger finger."

Riley said, "Sir, why would they just sit there and let us cut at them? Why wouldn't they just warp away?"

"I think we're about to find out if they can warp away, Mr. Riley. Spock, Nav, I want you to work out a maneuvering path that is as random as possible."

Spock stepped down to the navigation console. He had a humble bend to his upper back that Kirk wished he would shake. Spock and Nav discussed how to plot a truly random course.

Spock said, "Given the length of time needed for the sequence of phaser fire, we need to regenerate our random seed number often, otherwise it can be calculated from our past maneuvers and we will become highly predictable."

Kirk crossed his legs and listened to the conversation. His affection for Spock was taking on a new shape. His presence made Kirk's much beloved role of ship commander many times more viable. Spock was almost an extension of the ship itself.

Kirk pushed to his feet. "Riley, until engineering gives the signal that they are have modified the phasers, we'll be staying put. Keep an eye on the disabled ships. I'll be in security."

Kirk picked up Glissen from the main security area along with two guards and took them to Yarrow's quarters.

"Want to help your old colleague plan a boarding, Yarrow?" Kirk said.

Yarrow turned off the monitor, which had been rigged to be read-only. "I actually don't believe in redemption."

"That doesn't surprise me. But I thought you'd like to be right."

Glissen spoke low. "Commander, I don't need any help."

Yarrow scoffed. 

Kirk put a hand on Glissen's upper arm. "Yes. You do." He turned to Yarrow. "Did you see the scans of the Himalaya?"

"Yes. Of course I did. You think I have anything else to do locked up in here?"

"Plan this action for your old team. You might hate me, but I suspect you'd like to protect them, if possible. You have twenty minutes, at most." Kirk parted the two guards standing beside the door, and went through with a nod to each of them. In the corridor lined with lockers, the rest of security were gearing up, putting on utility belts and fitting reflective plate. Kirk fitted a set for himself and hung it back up, keyed that locker to his id, but left it unlocked.

To Ensign Rig beside him, who had slowed in surprise to watch him, Kirk said, "Tell Glissen I'm joining the boarding team. And get an extra rifle and two hand phasers for me when Glissen opens the weapons locker."

Rig dumbly nodded. 

"Engineering reports ready, sir," Comm greeted Kirk as he entered the bridge.

"Let's get into position and start cutting."

The maneuvering pattern strained the ship and the bridge crew who wanted to remain seated. The phaser bank whine became an eye watering annoyance. 

Himalaya's first shot made the shields sizzle.

"That was too close," Gunner said, glancing at Spock.

Spock said, "The beam size at this distance relative to our course will make most shots feel that close."

The next shot did feel just as close. And the next. Kirk's neck hair prickled him.

"Progress on breaking through?"

"Third of the way," Scanner said.

"Right on schedule, Spock. Good work."

Spock dropped his gaze and turned back to the secondary scanner station. 

"Has security reported to the transporter room?" Kirk asked Comm.

"Not yet, sir."

"As soon as the gun is down, we're going to take up a position over a weak part of the shielding. I estimate twelve minutes. Let Glissen know."

The next shot glanced off Ranger's shields. Primary power flickered on the bridge.

"Shields are back up, sir, but at thirty percent."

Kirk stepped forward. "Helm, take us off automatic, and fly a random course of your own choosing. I think we're still too predictable. I'd rather take longer to cut through and use more range for movement."

Gunner said, "We won't survive another hit."

Kirk said, "I'm aware of that. But by the time we get out of range on retreat, we'll have cut through. Might as well finish the job."

The next shot was far wide.

"Good flying, Fairfeather."

The phasers shut down. 

Scanner said, "The beam is through the outer hull."

"Put the phasers on manual fire, but automatic targeting. I want to blow the powerplant when it has the least power so we don't burst their hull. Wait for their next shot at us, and try to stay in range, but don't put us in the most advantageous spot, Helm, as that's too obvious."

Toyvan rested his hands just above his board, waiting.

The next shot at Ranger was close again. The shields rippled.

"Shields at fifteen percent."

Toyvan fired. The phaser beam dispersed.

"Wait until the next round. Their recharge is only slightly longer than ours."

"Sorry, sir. Tough firing through a narrow hole. The targeting computer can either be programmed with the inner target or the outer one, not both to account for the angle."

Toyvan made continuous adjustments on his board.

"Helm, bring us across our optimum location to fire from just after the gun fires. Keep us wide before then." He should have thought of that before. They wasted a shot.

The big gun fired at lower power, remained on, sweeping in a widening loop away from where the Ranger wanted to position itself.

Fairfeather's hands tapped across her board. The Ranger rocked, surged sideways between sweeps. The shield's sizzled. Gunner fired when the targeting computer's beeping went solid.

The yellow beam of the phasers erupted in a geyser of white flare and red metal from the gun emplacement. Glittering particles continued to tumble outward after the flare subsided.

"Hull status on the enemy?" Kirk asked.

There was a delay while Scanner worked. "There is nitrogen escaping, but it is a continuous stream of a cubic meter a minute, not a rupture that's worsening."

"That will keep them busy, at least. Bring us in, Helm. Good work."

The bridge doors opened and Ensign Rig stepped out, carrying reflective plate and weapons.

Kirk took the breastplate and caught Spock's expression as it flickered to alarmed, then solidified back to calm. Kirk donned everything quickly while speaking to Riley.

"Remain parked close enough to stay on their blind side unless you see some other energy build up you don't think the shields can handle. But odds are, anything they can rig to shoot at us, can't match up to the gun on the other side of the ship."

"If they warp away?"

"Stay with us. Not that you'll have a choice. We'll try to be ready for rescue when they drop out of warp. Do the same."

Kirk tugged the straps tight, shouldered the rifle. "Spock." He tilted his head in the direction of the lift.

As they entered, Kirk said, "You are the ultimate officer material, Spock. You have emotions, but you don't let them impact your actions."

Ensign Rig stood at attention and didn't react when Kirk hit the lift stop.

Kirk said, "But while I'm gone. You are confined to quarters."

Spock reacted more to this than he had to the appearance of Kirk's battle gear. 

"I wish to assist."

Kirk hit the door open. They had been stopped on the crew deck. 

Kirk said, "Go. I can't be worried about you."

"James . . ."

"GO." 

Spock stepped out backwards. He appeared unnerved.

"Sorry," Kirk said, and hit the lift handle again. The lift moved even as the doors were still closing. 

Rig was biting his lip. He stopped when he noticed Kirk's attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to cut down on physical section breaks when there isn't an actual break in time. But please let me know if it makes chapters like this one harder to follow.


	34. Another Mission Drop

In the transporter room, Glissen said, "You taking command of the boarding, sir?"

"No. Just tell me what you want me to do." Kirk looked around at the hard, determined faces. Glissen had pulled six reserves from the rest of the crew. That left them with four teams of 6 to 7. He approved of her choices.

The monitor on the wall showed a wireframe simulation of the planned attack. 

Glissen sounded too young as she explained, "We're going over in four waves, one of them is a feint. Teams A and B will rendezvous and split up again forward of the large storage bay used for manufacturing, clearing guards and securing that area to protect noncombatants. Team C will run the passageways port side of the bay to clear guards and come up the back ladders above the bay to meet up with Team D where scans indicate there are cramped quarters surrounded by security fields. Teams C and D are coming in from the same side to prevent pinching the noncombatants in the middle with the enemy, although we're going to send a single person up to draw fire forward of the area as if we're coming in from both sides. Prisoners will be brought through above or below depending upon the situation onboard. We're carrying extra arms for those that will be able to assist in covering the escape."

She looked around the room, stopped on Kirk. "Do you want to be in charge of Team C, sir? Rig, is that all right?"

Rig nodded. He wasn't tall and with his reflective plate, he looked even shorter.

Kirk studied the sequence of movements Team C was expected to perform. There were a lot of crossing passages for the enemy and bots to intersect their intended route. 

Kirk said, "I'd like to disable the warp drives, but we don't have the personnel to do that while also performing a rescue." To himself he thought, we don't have the personnel to handle the rescue.

Kirk checked his weapons. "Remember, the only vulnerable spots on a bot are the joints and the weapons portals."

Glissen said, "We aren't bring anything heavier than rifles because of the confined space. We're going to hit fast and get out so it matters less." 

Kirk suspected she was quoting Yarrow. "I don't think you can bring anything heavier when you can't tell friend from foe. A launcher can't be set to stun if there is uncertainty."

They waited, shifting from foot to foot, warm in their padding, until the bridge gave the signal.

Team C was second onto the platform. Kirk tried to forget the outcome of the last time he led a team into battle. At least this time they had more complete reconnaissance.

He swung the rifle low and turned on his toes on the slippery glass plate over the transporter pad. He sank away into his head, to a place where every little creaking noise from his equipment sounded loud in his ears. The transporter tech made adjustments in slow motion. Kirk couldn't worry that someone may be worried about him. He couldn't afford it.

They arrived in a dark brown corridor where heavy dust danced in the few glow lights in the upper corners. Rig pulled up his gas mask. 

Kirk oriented himself while testing the communications, which was signal-blocked as expected. He made a motion with his hand to the ear area of his helmet and the others confirmed the helmets were dead. He signaled for them to move with a hand gesture. They'd be zeroed in on immediately and this was their few precious seconds of free movement.

The passageways looked different in reality than the wireframe. Kirk pulled his visor down so he got an overlay. He didn't like the distraction of it green over the dark world, was accustomed to planetside landings, not ship boardings. He flipped it up again.

Phaser fire came from ahead, bounced off plates and scattered. The team jumped behind struts and bulkheads. There were a lot of places to hide. Kirk didn't envy anyone trying to defend this ship.

Rig signaled for cover and Kirk and another leaned out to lay down fire. Rig scuttled into position at a side cargo doorway that was sealed closed. He signaled for someone to go ahead of him. Two from near the back leapt up together and ran through fire. One stumbled, got up and hobbled into position.

Kirk rushed ahead when it was his turn and got into position on lead. He was soaking wet inside his pads and his breath felt like the air from a humidifier. He flipped the visor down to check on their progress and the time. They were just halfway but up ahead the passageway was blocked off by a large piece of equipment on a broken dolly. The seven member team were stretching thin, leaving behind personnel to hold the territory they'd cleared.

It was Kirk's turn to leapfrog when they reached the blockage, forcing a diversion to a parallel corridor. He went around the corner and glanced down the next passageway and pulled back as fire sizzled by him. He flipped the visor down for protection and looked out again. Bot sensors glowed from the end of the passageway where they could fire along the whole length. He saw only one person and the visor confirmed the single life sign. 

This old ship had a lot of shifting partitions for storage flexibility. Some were wedged open, some clearly hung crooked and broken. Some still had glowing green lights on their control panels.

Kirk scuttled back to beside Rig and matched his turtle crouch which closed up all the open areas around the reflective plate. 

Kirk said, "Bots. At least three large ones. I'm going to trap them in. Take the team and continue around and to the deck above. I'll rendezvous with you. Just keep going."

"You're separating from the team? That's not wise, sir."

"I have more experience with these things than the rest of you put together. I'm the right person to assign. You'll hear a cargo partition close. That's your signal to move."

Kirk pushed to his feet and stopped at the threshold to the long corridor. He had to trust the plate to keep him alive until he could reach the next turn beyond where the partition would close. He could see it on the visor. He would be trapping himself on the enemy's side but there was a lot of real estate beyond.

Kirk ducked low and sprinted full out. He fired mostly in hopes of hitting the one humanoid. He tripped the control as he passed it and rolled through an opening beyond it to the left. His reflective plate rumbled under his back against the deck. The triggered wall rolled slowly sideways. Kirk turned and raised his weapon to defend the opening as it shrank. A human figure ran toward it. Kirk hit it with heavy stun and it slid and fell still directly in the path of the closing partition wall. 

"Damn," Kirk muttered. 

The bots weren't firing, but Kirk could hear their footsteps, and the distinctive sound of actuators. Something made them know not to fire on that figure. Kirk jumped out, grabbed a booted foot and tugged the figure clear of the door, just as it closed, suffering heavy fire to his helmet. His head grew hot. If it got too hot the phaser reflective properties would start to break down.

Kirk gave a last heave and pulled the fallen figure down the side passage and searched it. The tall male figure wore dark woven clothing, top to bottom. He wore a utility belt and several heavy bracelets. Kirk's crude visor scanner was no help in determining what device might be signaling to the bots. But the bots were about to make the corner and would have a point blank shot. Kirk bent and hefted the limb body over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and hurried away with the bot footsteps clanking on the deck in pursuit.

Kirk continued under the heavy load, trying to find a path out, or up to the level above where he could rendezvous with his team. The bots pursuing from behind weren't firing. They certainly had repeated clear shots. A corridor that should have widened out into a larger storage area with a ladder was closed off. Bulkhead partitions had been changed around. That's what Kirk would have done to aid in defense: make the enemy's maps useless.

Kirk's spine was compressing uncomfortably. He longed to set his burden down. Instead, he tripped and the figure rolled away and came up swinging, contacting Kirk's helmet with a heavy tool he must have had on his belt. Kirk's ears rang despite the helmet. He rolled with the blow and pulled out his phaser and fired blind. But the figure was running back down the passageway. Kirk fired again, felling him. The bots came around the corner and immediately opened fire. Kirk felt the heat of it through his plate, feared it would fail or just melt and drown him.

Kirk pushed to his feet, feeling light without his burden, and ran, limbs flying. He was overdue to rendezvous, was going to force else someone to separate to hunt him down, which he couldn't bear to have happen.

The corridor grew narrower, jogged around mysterious structures, but he kept heading roughly the same direction toward the aft of the ship where on the scan there had been lots of ladders. His sense of how big a ship could be was way off, to the point of delusion. 

Beeping went off on Kirk's hazard badge. He pulled his mask up from his neck and pressed it tight, feeling the seal grab his skin. He gave a sharp inhale to made sure it was fully set and turned to look back. He couldn't see anything behind him. The lighting was sparse here. He put the visor back down so he could get an enhancement. The wireframes drew on path information which was no longer valid.

Metal boots approached and hissing actuators. Kirk ran on. He skidded to a stop at a wide spot and spun around. His boots made a gritty noise. He stood in an unused equipment alcove and there was no other passages. Cables hung from the walls along with broken brackets. It looked like something large had been ripped out by an impatient giant. 

Once the bots made the last corner, he was dead. Pinned down, subject to enough fire to make his reflective plate fail, he could be snuffed out with a single, rather wimpy, burst of phaser energy.

Kirk pressed himself to the side wall and held his phaser rifle aimed just about shoulder height. His only very slim chance of survival was to slag the bot's weapon portal, and then hope it only had one. He slid the phaser rifle to low power and jerked it back to full power, making sure it was all the way up. His hand stung he yanked so hard.

The metal footsteps came closer. A sound like a medical tricorder filled the corridor, rocking to and fro, then stabilizing. It had a lock on his lifesign. Kirk backed up, looked around. He was angry at himself. Not for separating from his team. Not for the decision to board the enemy ship rather than wait for reinforcements. No, he regretted that at that moment he had no memory of bedding Spock to dwell in should he be backed into the last corner, faced with those glowing bot sensors guiding weapons with powerpacks that never seemed to run dry.

In the hazy brown light full of dust and the stink of diesel and machine oil, he wondered at himself, who he really was, because apparently, he didn't know. This was not how he wanted to exit this universe.

Kirk looked around again, growing more pissed off rather than rattled. The world around him grew stark, the sounds became less urgent. He became acutely aware of his own body.

The empty equipment alcove extended deeply into the bulkhead on the left toward the bow of the ship. Kirk hurriedly unslung the phaser rifle from his shoulder and pulled a hand phaser from his belt. He moved without thought. Hand phaser in his left hand, feet shifting left, preparing to jump. He threw the phaser rifle where the passageway emerged. It bounced, skidded, hit the wall and spun. He bent his knees, brought this hands together, and tracking the powerpack portion of the rifle, fired just as he leapt sideways.

The blast set off a great groan of metal, picked him up, twisted him around and slammed him the rest of the way into the alcove. Cables whipped him. His butt met the deck at the same moment the shockwave made the bulkhead pulse away from him and snap back. 

Kirk couldn't hear. Even his own breathing. With shaking hands he pushed his gas mask better into place, felt around it compulsively that it was intact, that the seal was tight against his cheeks. His helmet was crooked, choking him. He found the clips and released them, tried to pull it straight but it refused to fit. For some reason these things seemed incredibly important.

He felt around for his phaser in the darkness. His helmet light was no longer working. Either the silence was complete or his hearing was gone. He pulled off the helmet and heard the sound of air hissing. He ceased his crawling around in search of his phaser to use all fours to get to his feet. The right side of his body obeyed only weakly, lagging the rest of him.

He found his phaser when he kicked it. He set it to low power, wide beam so he could use it as a light and held it far to the side in case someone used it as a target. He was turned around in the darkness. The damage was 180 degrees from where he thought it should be. He had almost kicked the phaser into the gaping hole in the deck.

The rifle powerpack had blown a round hole into the square passageway. A grid of bent trusses were intact between the missing decking plates. He might be able to step across them, once they cooled. Kirk switched off the phaser and listened. He tapped the side of his head to be certain his ears were working. They weren't working much.

He was going to have to chance it. He put his head around the corner and flicked the phaser on and off to get a glimpse. The corridor contained a tangle of bot parts and shattered plates with two toppled but intact bots beyond. No lights.

He looked again, longer this time. There was a swinging conduit from the overhead and some settling of bot limbs, but nothing moved by power of servo. 

Before he had a chance to think about the risk of falling through to the next deck, Kirk stepped out onto the truss grid that was the only path leading back the way he had come. His right leg nearly gave way when he put all his weight onto it. He put both feet together, stepped out with his left foot, arms waving for balance, brought his feet together. He repeated this, until sweat dripped from his armpits and around his mask.

With slow movements, he picked his way through the debris, ducking under a bot leg, untangling himself from cables and cords, passing by as far as possible from the two intact bots, sweating cold beads at the sight of their dark status lights and phaser ports, like the closed eyes of something pretending to sleep.

He tripped, sending his face to the floor. He probably should have kept his broken helmet on, but it was too late to fetch it. He couldn't immediately push back up to his trembling legs, so he continued on by crawling.

At the corner there was shouting, warbling and odd. He pressed to the sidewall, slid upward to his feet, hand phaser in both hands, trying to make sense of the sounds.


	35. Triage

Kirk heard a shrill voice shouting what sounded like "Muster!" which meant the team was returning to the beam-in area. He waited until the vibration of footsteps retreated, put his phaser around the corner and fired a stun in case the enemy was trying to follow the team. He glanced around the corner to see the result.

Nothing moved. He waited, breathing heavily. He coughed. The mask might be damaged, letting in poison gas. He stood and, with a last burst of strength, hobble-ran with a severe limp, tripping over colonist bodies and around the next corner. The doors leading into the manufacturing bay were open now. A bot turned and fired as he hurried past one. It ricocheted off his reflective plates and scattered along the walls. Searing burns struck across his arm and torso where the plates parted to let him move. He stubbornly kept at the hobbled running, considered himself lucky he didn't get shot in the head. The ship loomed huge around him. The passageway didn't look familiar even though he was sure he was backtracking.

"Commander Kirk!"

Kirk stumbled to a halt, nearly folding his right leg. He caught himself from the half fall, found a sense of vertical in the better lighting. Glissen was helping someone much taller than her. Kirk took the man's arm over his own shoulder, even though he needed the help nearly as much.

"Air's clear here, sir."

Kirk tugged his mask down, breathed freely. Coughed.

"Kirk?"

"Commander Pizzaro," Kirk said, mostly reading the man's lips. "Been a while." To Glissen: "Got everyone?" He was on automatic. He would be lucky to hear the answer.

"We think so. We hope so. We have all of our crew. That I have an accurate count on. Lots of walking wounded. Two of ours dead. Three imprisoned Starfleet dead. Not sure how many enemy dead and wounded, but as long as they aren't shooting at us . . ."

Kirk heard this as a warble, but it was getting easier to understand. He interrupted. "Let's get out before the enemy regroup."

They shuffled to the beam in area, which was quiet enough it almost felt like home.

Kirk flipped open his communicator. "Ranger, commence beam out. Take my signal and Glissen's last. Otherwise at your discretion." He helped Pizarro to the floor and crouched to push the man's feet in close to his body, draped the man's weak arms around his knees, and held his arms in place with one hand, waiting for the transporter to lock on. Around them people were limping or crawling into positions to make transporter locks easier to obtain.

Pizzarro squinted at him. His voice was faint, but Kirk heard it. "Good to see you, Kirk."

"Good to see you too, sir." Kirk realized only after he spoke that they were now the same rank.

Pizzarro noticed it too. "You got your stripes back."

A party of eight transported away.

"I did. Funny story about that."

"I'd like to hear it. Could use a funny story." Pizarro raised his head which had gone limp. "I never imagined you'd survived that drop on Wolfram. Any word on the Sanchez?"

"She's drifting nearby. Life support is about all that's functional. Tried to be selective about the damage so we can bring her back into service quickly."

The next group beamed away, and within half a minute, the next. Kirk would have to single out the transporter techs for special commendation.

Pizarro looked around. "I don't know what happened to Mitchell. I know you were good friends. I haven't seen him."

"I have."

"That's good."

Kirk bit his lips, composed himself. "He was commanding the Sanchez." Kirk let that sink in. Pizarro simply appeared confused. Kirk said, "You have a good hold? I'm keeping you from getting beamed out." Kirk released him and rocked back on his heels.

Kirk strained to get to his feet, got a hand up from Glissen, put his phaser back in his hand and hobbled over to check the approaches to their location. Behind him, the transporter kept running on a short cycle.

Kirk thought he saw something. He hobbled forward along the wall to glance down a side passage, leading with his weapon.

"Kirk, I can't grab you through the hole in the shielding if you keep moving around." This came over his communicator.

Kirk fired at the lead figure of four armed figures that were running at him. The figure fell, skidded.

"Tell me when it's the last round for transport."

"You are the last round. Sir."

Kirk ducked behind a structural pillar and pressed himself there. "Energize."

Kirk stepped off the transporter platform. Chapel was working on Pizzaro. Commander Yung was sitting beside him. He was a sunken-eyed, bony shell of what he used to be. The transporter room smelled of fear and months-old sweat. Kirk went to the lockers lining the walls of the transporter room for his personal stash of energy bars, peeled one, and offered it to Yung. The man tore into it.

"Kirk, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Command gave you a ship?"

Kirk crouched a bit straighter. "Yes, sir."

"Things must be bad."

At the transporter controls, Jones covered her smile with her hand. Kirk gave her a helpless look.

Chapel waved her scanner at Kirk, blanched. "Blast shock," she said.

Kirk stood up, tried to get away from her. "It's nothing."

She popped a new vial onto her hypo, stood, and shot him in the arm with it. Did this with another vial. Kirk felt much better. He gave her a glare and waved at the more obviously injured patients littering the transporter room.

Covering for his battered body, Kirk stepped over to the transporter panel, shedding reflective plate as he went.

"What's our status?" he asked the bridge.

An urgent call for Chapel to come to sickbay for a code red interrupted over the intercom.

Riley replied, "We're all right at the moment. Staying in their blind spot isn't too hard, but I don't like being this close. Should we back off?"

"We should back off to a distance outside the warp field. But no farther. They could put on a spin and hit us and we couldn't outrun the firing. If they try to roll, we need to stay with them."

"Right, sir. Didn't think of that. Just wanted to get away."

"I'm going to see if I can help in sickbay. Remain on the bridge until I can relieve you."

Kirk passed his quarters on the way. He triggered the door, trying not to lean too obviously on the doorframe for support.

Spock looked up.

"Come here," Kirk said.

Spock stood up and approached, gaze tinged with curiosity, an emotion he never seemed to try to suppress. Kirk appreciated the sight of him as he came closer.

Kirk reached up and put a hand behind Spock's neck and pulled him forward. He had to pull against Spock's incredibly stiff back to get their lips to come together. He kissed him aggressively, breathing on him harshly as stretching upward caused him pain. Spock's lips parted, but it might have been in surprise. Spock's neck relaxed, gave in. Kirk tilted his head and pressed his tongue into the heat of Spock's mouth.

Kirk grabbed Spock by the longish hair at the back of his head, pulled them apart, licked his lips to taste them.

Kirk said, "How is your medic qualification?"

Spock's left brow went up. But he recovered an instant later. "I was a medic on the Militant ship. Mostly because I was willing to touch others, which is rare, but I have studied all of the relevant Starfleet crew manuals."

Kirk let him go. "Good enough, come on. We're overwhelmed."

They passed through busy corridors. "It was unnecessary for me to remain in your quarters during your absence."

Despite his injury and despite being overly hyped up on mortal panic to the point of numbness, Kirk felt cold fear at the idea of Spock unguarded.

Kirk growled, "I'm not letting anything happen to you."

The corridor outside sickbay was lined with the injured. Six members of Ranger's security and eight of the rescues. They had rescued seventeen loyal Federation civilians who had been taken prisoner by the rebels and only one had been injured in the actual rescue. Talk in the transporter room indicated that was due in part to the freed Starfleet personnel acting self-sacrificing, but Kirk still felt a surge of pride at that outcome.

Rand was crouched beside a member of security, using a scanner and shaking her head.

"Where are you on triage?" Spock asked her, his voice unsteady.

She pointed at the figure beside her. "Here."

"You are moving too slowly." Spock crouched beside the next, used his personal scanner, stood and moved to the next. Kirk followed, ready to assist. Spock said to Rand, "Keep going down the line the other direction."

The next body was limp. Spock stood crookedly, fell to lean against the wall. His eyes had gone inward.

"Code red," Kirk shouted into sickbay proper.

A reserve nurse in a red shirt came out. He was a broad shouldered man, and he pushed Kirk aside as he came with a large floating kit and started hooking machinery to human.

Kirk walked around and took Spock hard by the arm. "Come on. Best to focus on something else. Give me your scanner."

Spock's gaze came back from the far distance where it had retreated. He bit his lips. Slowly, he pushed straight.

"Next one," Kirk said, hard and commanding.

Movements still odd, Spock crouched beside the civilian prisoner whose lower leg was missing. The stump had been bandaged with an inflatable. He lay on his side with his arms clutched over his head. Spock scanned his vitals, taking longer this time. He nodded, and moved on to an injured security member. Kirk stayed close beside, trying to bring the same kind of calm to Spock as Spock usually brought to him.

As he scanned Greige, seemingly unaware of the man's alarm, Spock haltingly explained, "I have no difficulty with my own death. It would be illogical to do so. I know I am mortal. The feel of another's death, the sense of the soul slipping away . . ."

Kirk said, "It's all right. It's not weakness if you overcome it."

Greige turned his waxy face to Kirk, seeming confused.

Kirk said to him. "Doing all right, there?"

"I'm fine. Just waiting."

"He's in shock," Spock said. "Needs a warming blanket and oxygen, perhaps a stimulant."

"I'll get them," Kirk said.

Spock turned his head with a jerk toward the figure being worked on as code red. A solid tonal alarm went off on the life support equipment. Spock's eyes faded again.

Kirk had to leave him and let him cope on his own. He returned from the stock room, weaving his way through the chaos of sickbay proper. They were not outfitted for this level of injured, it was almost comedic at this scale.

Kirk hurriedly administered to Greige, who was able to partly help himself, and took Spock hard by the arm again. Had he been human he would have jerked back from the pain.

Spock recovered faster this time, or seemed to. Kirk wondered if he had simply compartmentalized. He seemed robotic in his movements now, but he was moving. They were two thirds done.

Kelly from security was splayed across the corridor at the end of the line. Blood had painted his hair and the side of his face from a cut on his scalp. He was leaning over Hully from engineering who had been in the reserves. Her reflective plate had been cut off her torso, but still covered her arms. She had discoloration under her chin and neck that looked like a blunt force injury exacerbated by the plates.

"She can't breathe!" Kelly pleaded, looked up at them with pained panic.

Spock ran bodily into Kirk to stop him approaching. "Get an airway kit," Spock said.

Kirk found the right bag in the storage area because of the icon of humanoid lungs, mouth and throat.

Kirk dropped to his battered knees where Hully's long hair splayed over the deck. Her chest was heaving, her lips were bluing. Spock was moving with surety now. He was straddling her, had her uniform unsealed. Drying blood was smeared over her front from the laceration under her chin forming a grossly sexual tableau.

"Swelling injury," Spock said.

Kirk pulled the kit open from the top like he'd seen medical staff do and pulled it apart and taut so all the equipment stood out, shiny and clean. Spock plucked up a bent tube with a curved disk and a glinting metal flute on the end of it. He turned it one way than the other. Used the scanner.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Kelly demanded.

Kirk held up a hand to quiet him.

Spock said, "Humans are just machines." He pressed the fluted end into her neck and it gave way with a punching sound.

Kirk had looked away without intending to. The airy sound that rushed through the tube made him look back. Spock slipped a disk down into place against her neck, sprayed goo generously around it to keep it in place. Used his scanner again.

"Look good?" Kirk asked.

"Oxygenation at 70% and rising rapidly." He stood up with graceful ease and stepped over limbs and medical equipment back to where he'd left off.

Kirk patted Kelly's shoulder and, with legs quivering under the strain, managed to stand again, using Kelly as a support. He gingerly stepped over bodies and equipment to reach Spock.

Kirk leaned against the wall while Spock and Rand finished a second round of triage together and tagged patients. The door to sickbay was locked open. Chapel was working on three beds at once, directing the two nurses and the reserves to work on the other patients with quite a bit of shouting.

The comm whistled for Kirk. He reached over his shoulder to hit the switch.

"Commander, we just received a broad beam communication from the Lexington. She is approaching at top warp speed, a few hours ahead of Potemkin."

Kirk felt his insides melt in relief. "ETA?"

"Oh six hundred fifteen, about seven hours from now."

"Warn them we need urgent medical support upon arrival."


	36. Deserved

Kirk rested his head back. He could see at least two sets of eyes on him from those waiting to be treated outside sickbay. He lifted his head again and pushed off the wall. He needed to make it those seven hours until the Lexington arrived, and then some.

Spock was standing at the end of the line of wounded, adjusting his scanner. Kirk stepped down to him and pinched Spock's sleeve and tugged on it.

"Get me a stimulant," Kirk said, tossing his head toward sickbay.

Spock looked up, studied his eyes. "You do not command me."

Kirk stared, wondering if he'd imagined what Spock had just said.

Spock said, "You have two choices. Remain here and wait for treatment-"

"I'm not going ahead of anyone."

"Or be taken to your quarters to rest."

They stared at each other. Kirk opened his mouth and closed it again.

Spock ran his scanner over Kirk, looked at the reading, folded the scanner up. Waited.

Kirk felt prickly heat around his uniform collar. He looked down the corridor, looked at the people resting on the floor. Looked back at Spock.

"You have no immediate duties," Spock pointed out coolly. "I can wait until you collapse. You, however, do not have the luxury of time."

Kirk said, "Someone dropped your ice cream on the ground and stomped on it."

Spock tilted his head, shook it faintly. "I do not understand."

Kirk huffed. "Fine. I'll take a short break. Short."

On the walk to his quarters they encountered a lot of people in the corridor, crew and rescues, standing around talking, even sitting playing cards. The ship was suddenly carrying nearly twice as many souls as before. They all looked up and nodded, looked like they wanted to talk, but stopped once they recognized Kirk's condition. The newcomers all eyed Spock with surprise.

In his quarters, Kirk stripped off his uniform shirt and fell on his bunk on his left side, except his arm and hip on that supposedly uninjured side ached when placed in contact with the bed. He rolled carefully onto his back, alarmed anew by the state of his body. His heart raced.

Spock stood beside the bunk, observing him. "Do you require anything?"

"Water and a couple of snack bars. But I want you to go back and help in sickbay, especially because I can't, except I don't want you there without an escort."

Spock brought a canteen and snack bars and set them on the pullout table at the head of the bunk.

"I am 99.999% certain I can get to sickbay safely."

"Okay. Tell Rand to bring you there and back here when you are through."

"Your concern is bordering on the paranoid."

Kirk raised his hand to point aggressively. "It's been a month since most of security decided it was a grand idea to stun-torture and beat you and I'm being paranoid?" Kirk pushed to sit up, too agitated to remain on his back. He looked over Spock's features, still unable to understand how anyone could see fit to injure him.

"Spock, if anyone harms you again." Kirk put both hands on the bunk but he didn't dare try and stand even though his agitation demanded it. He dropped his voice. "If anyone harms you again, I will kill them."

Spock dropped his gaze and nodded. "I will be extremely careful in that case." This wasn't sarcasm; this was a pledge. It calmed Kirk considerably.

Spock said, "But you must rest."

Kirk put out a hand to lower himself to his bunk again, wishing he'd stayed put to start with. "I don't know what you are on this ship," he muttered. He settled in on his side, deciding to ignore his aching hip. He closed his eyes, felt the ship drift up and down, side to side, but it was probably actually stable. "You usually do what I say."

"Usually your commands are logical and I am quite satisfied with adhering to the notion of coordinated action. But I refuse to put you at further risk."

Kirk breathed in and out, willing his alarmed heart to slow. "Fine."

Spock's fingers touched Kirk's bare shoulder, which was sensitive as hell and flared with pain.

"You are quite bruised and you have rather deep burns in your arm and side."

Kirk didn't move. "I know."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk woke to the door hissing open, sending a column of light into the cabin.

"What time is it?" Kirk asked, unwilling to raise his head and look at the chronometer.

"It is oh three hundred fifty one."

"Everyone all right?"

Spock's voice was slow and quiet. "The remaining injured are stable, awaiting treatment or transport to the Lexington."

"Did we lose anyone else in sickbay?"

"No."

The room was dark except for the status lights on various panels. Kirk patted the bunk beside him. "Lie down with me."

"It is far too narrow."

Kirk sat up, pleased he could do it without too much additional pain, shifted to the edge of the bunk by feel and pulled out the drawer just above the bed, held it out, assuming Spock could see just fine.

"Set this underneath."

The drawer was taken from his blind hands. He did this with two more drawers. It made the bed about twenty centimeters wider.

Kirk shifted backward into the niche formed by the missing drawers and patted the bed beside him.

He heard the sound of a uniform being shucked off, tried to see Spock, but only got a glimpse of smooth skin rippling over the muscles of his upper back from the pin lights on the door panel. Spock took up the white robe, the robe he'd given Kirk when they'd first parted, slipped it on and sat on the edge of the bunk.

Kirk's chest ached for Spock to be beside him. He said, "I promise to behave. I just want you here."

Spock reached for something. It turned out to be his pillow. He put that at the head of Kirk's bunk and lay down on his back. He smelled reassuringly of the harsh soap used by medical.

Kirk held perfectly still, arms at his sides. His insides below his heart tightened, making it hard to breathe. He could just discern the landscape of Spock's robed body, the soft material glowing faintly in the dim light. Easier to see was his profile, outlined in the yellow-green of the door sensor lights. The alien heat of him began to seep through the thick robe and radiate at Kirk.

Kirk lay on his side, keeping his distance, floating above his injuries. He resisted sleep, forcing his eyes open again and again. He shifted his bent left arm under his pillow to better support his head.

Kirk snapped awake when his forehead fell against Spock's shoulder. Kirk adjusted his pillow again, fixed his gaze on the deeper shadow where Spock's robe front came together. He longed to crawl down inside there and never move.

"You should rest," Spock said, not sounding the least bit tired.

Kirk didn't feel annoyed; he felt cared for. He draped his right arm over Spock's chest and rested his face against Spock's thickly padded shoulder. He pulled himself closer, holding tight, hooked a leg over a narrow thigh. He'd taken on five ships single-handed that day. He'd earned this.

Kirk fitted their bodies together better and relaxed against the heat of Spock. He longed to pull himself straight through Spock to occupy the same space, but draping across him for a few hours would have to do.

"You all right with this?" Kirk asked.

"Yes. Especially if I am assisting you."

Kirk made a noise of frustration. "It makes me want more."

"Given your condition, I don't think there is any risk of that."

Kirk tightened his arm around Spock. He felt overheated. He felt half dead. He felt an aching emptiness.

Kirk said, "I want you here all the time."

"I want to take you to sickbay. But Doctor Chapel is resting."

"So that's why you didn't drag me away. I didn't want to risk asking."

"James. You heal best in sleep. Please do so."

"Have to make the most of this. This isn't going to last."

Kirk dozed, determined to remain at least partly aware of his body pressing against Spock. The battle replayed in his head in small snatches. He'd succeeded this time, despite terrible odds. His risky plan had been rescued by the element of surprise, by the actions of those they'd rescued.

The comm whistled. He raised his injured arm, regretted it. Spock caught Kirk's arm and lowered it to the bed, reached up to touch the comm stud on the wall for him.

Kirk turned his head to speak clearly. "Kirk here."

"Lexington reports they are ahead of schedule. ETA is now oh five hundred forty five."

"Thanks. I'll be there in fifteen."

Kirk tried to sit up, found every joint and muscle on the right side of his body had seized during the night. It was always one or the other. Resting either made things a bit better, or much much worse.

Spock pulled Kirk to sit up by his left arm and brought up the lights. Kirk rubbed his face, trying to wake up enough to bring his willpower to bear, which he was going to need to overcome his resistant body. He wasn't going to make it. The Lexington was on the way. He needed to be on the bridge and Spock was going to drag him to sickbay, would not be ordered to do otherwise.

"James?"

Kirk slid his hands down off his face. Spock was sitting beside him, holding a hypo full of dark pink liquid.

"The stimulant you requested earlier. Along with an inflammation reducer."

"I love you," Kirk said.

Spock pressed the hypo to Kirk's bare left arm. Dark purplish and green bruises ran down Kirk's right arm, glared from at the top of his hip above his waistband. The hiss of the hypo went on for long seconds.

A feeling of lightness spread through Kirk followed by a tingling energy. He rubbed his hair back.

"Thank you."

"You have duties that override your limits."

"Yesterday I didn't think you understood that."

Kirk reached down to the floor for his uniform shirt, which was blood spattered and smeared.

Kirk said, "I unwisely threw my other uniform in the laundry, forgetting that laundry gets canceled as soon as we go to yellow alert."

"It might be improved by being shaken out under the sonics," Spock said.

Kirk stood and did that for a few seconds. It did lighten the stains a little.

"Get dressed and come to the bridge with me," Kirk said as he pulled the shirt over his head.

Kirk paid attention to putting on his boots, not to Spock's body as Spock slipped out of the robe and into his insignia-less uniform. Spock waited by the door for him to finish getting ready with great care of movement. Kirk finally approached him, wanted to press him into the corner, feel himself against him again. He ran a hand over his arm instead.

"I risk unacceptably distracting you," Spock said.

"Not a risk on the bridge. Trust me." Kirk triggered the door and turned back just long enough to say, "By the way. I may end up using you miserably today. I hope you can forgive me for it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: (In case anyone is interested...) The story's themes culminate in this chapter. Primitive churches were carved out of rock faces. You can see them around the Mediterranean outside of burial grounds, simple niches that contain memorials or offerings. In his quarters during a lull in the fighting, Kirk takes out the drawers over the bed, forming a niche. He promises to behave and deciding he's finally worthy having sacrificed enough, drapes himself across Spock, who serves as the white shrouded altar. 
> 
> Some of these themes carry on in later stories, such as Kirk's growing sense that he needs to earn Spock. But they reached the peak here.


	37. Respect

Kirk started out striding, but could not maintain it. He hobbled to the lift, alarmed all over again by his body.

As the lift doors opened onto the bridge, Rand said, "The rescues report one to three missing from their company, sir."

"Damn. Why the variance in the number?"

"There is uncertainty about loyalty."

"Right."

Riley stepped out of the center seat and stood to the right side of it, looking eternally grateful Kirk had arrived. Kirk strolled the bridge in defiance of his body.

"Any demands from the enemy with regards to them? Are they using them as hostages?"

"No communications at all, sir."

Kirk rubbed his eyes. They had been undermanned for the mission in the first place. They did well, considering. Phenomenal, really, even considering the enemy kept the prisoners confined in one area. In the confusion, to get so many out was a miracle. But it didn't feel that way.

Comm said, "Lexington is hailing us, sir."

Kirk stepped over in front of his chair.

"Spock." Kirk curled his finger indicating that he should approach.

Spock hesitated. Kirk jerked his head this time, pointed. Spock moved slowly, stepped down and took up a position in the left half of the lower command circle, hands behind his back, angled toward Kirk, not toward the chair or the screen.

Kirk turned forward. "Put the connection on the viewscreen, Comm."

The bridge of the Lexington flickered into life on the screen, looking spacious and well lit.

"This is Captain Hikaru Sulu of the USS Lexington. Greetings to the USS Ranger, and I presume Commander Kirk?" His eyes looked around the bridge, glanced at Kirk's stained and burned uniform, glanced twice at Spock.

"Yes sir."

"We received your communications and are prepared for your medical transfer as soon as we are in system."

"We are still in an active battle here, Captain," Kirk said. "We're squatting under the Himalaya's one destroyed gun. But she's still firing if she gets the chance. As well, the USS Sanchez is orbiting the second moon of the planet on the other side of the system, still in enemy hands."

"Understood. We'll coordinate the details when we arrive. Lexington out."

Kirk sat down, gratefully. The minutes passed, drifted by in a strangely peaceful aura of system bleeps and chimes. Kirk thought he could remain that way indefinitely. Maybe it was the medication.

The connection re-established. Kirk pushed to his feet before the signal could stabilize.

Sulu spoke to someone off screen. "If you back off two hundred klicks we can place our forward shields between you and the Himalaya so that you can drop shields. Helm tells me you will fit easily in our shadow."

Kirk said, "Acknowledged. But be warned, Himalaya's guns pack a punch. We can retreat to the other side of the dead sun as well if you prefer. But then we have to worry about the Sanchez and the other two ships, which are disabled, but presumably making repairs."

"Let's keep the big guy intimidated if we can." Sulu spoke with a satisfied smile that was echoed by both bridges' personnel. He glanced down at his feet. "Helm let me know when we are in position."

Kirk said, "We've sensor tagged the patients who are in need of evacuation. Perhaps we can open a comm line between medical and your transporter room."

"Acknowledged."

Comm said, "We also have three patients the CMO wants moved by shuttle or she needs more equipment and personnel brought over."

"We'll send a shuttle."

On the helm station screen the Lexington's graceful shape slid into view. The shuttle bay doors opened, the large starship pitched nose down to put the shuttle in the shadow of the forward disk and its heavy shields.

"Helm reports that you are in our shadow, Ranger."

Kirk had three seconds of panicked delusion that it was all a trick and the Lexington would destroy them. Well, the Lexington could destroy them, shields down or up.

"Drop our shields, Nav."

"Shields down, sir."

Comm said, "Transport is commencing, Captain. Commander."

Kirk hated being this exposed, shadow of a huge starship or not. He turned to Spock. "Get on scanner."

Spock stepped away.

Sulu leaned forward. He had a crisply precise way of speaking. "According to your transmission, you removed the non-combatants from the Himalaya already?"

"All but three, or perhaps as few as one, there is some dispute about the number. We went ahead and got out who we could. We were concerned about retribution or the Himalaya going to warp and taking them away. We're leaving the clean up of the combatants to you. We tried not to steal all the fun."

"The Potemkin is two hours behind us. We will await their arrival in that case and mount an overwhelming offense. No sense in anyone getting hurt unnecessarily."

Kirk tried to turn to comm, but his right leg was quivering. He stepped back and took the center seat, just the edge of it, and rotated instead.

"Comm, ask security if there is anyone willing and fit to go back over to the Himalaya to help guide the boarding parties from Lexington and Potemkin." He paused. "Make it clear it's not an order, just a request."

There was a long pause. Kirk spent it wondering how long the stimulant shot was going to last.

Sulu looked and sounded like a sympathetic uncle. "Is there anything else we can help you with, Ranger?"

"No, we're set for now."

"We'll give you a direct line to Helm in that case, to coordinate positioning. Lexington out."

"Acknowledged. Ranger out."

The screen filled with the aft view of the Lexington, white and sleek. The shuttle was growing larger on the screen, coming straight at them to stay out of the firing line.

Gunner said, "Himalaya is rolling."

"How many hits do you think Lexington's shields can take?" Engineering asked.

"Seven," Nav said.

"Five," Gunner said. "I've got twenty credits says five."

"We're not wagering on this." Kirk tried hard to sound unamused but in his current state he risked laughing aloud.

Gunner said, "Look at her. Not a scratch on her."

"Well, there is that," Kirk said. "It's not over yet. Give me a schematic of the ship positions."

The forward view split and showed wireframes of the three ships with the cargo ship dwarfing the two of them.

"She's a monster."

"For more reasons than her size," Kirk said.

There was a clunk as the shuttle latched on. Then minutes later, another clunk as it disengaged.

"All patients evaced, sir."

"Bring our shields back up, all power to forward, and take us mark ninety five hundred meters. I want a better view of the cargo ship."

The view and schematics shifted. The comm burst to life and a new voice came on. "Ranger, you are drifting."

Kirk hit the button on his chair arm. "We're getting a better view, Lexington."

There was a long pause. "Your prerogative. Lexington out."

"Hm," was the only noise Kirk allowed himself to make. He was feeling vaguely disrespected, but should just buck up and accept the pecking order, which wasn't exactly unreasonable.

Kirk slid back in the command seat, grateful to rest his back, but not grateful for how badly his bruises hurt.

Spock came down into the center area, put his hand on the back of Kirk's chair.

Kirk looked up at him, certain he wanted Kirk to go to sickbay. Kirk shook his head.

Spock's gaze remained on him long seconds, showing worry. Kirk gave him a small smile of reassurance and he went back to his station.

The shuttle gradually shrank, slipped home. The shuttle bay doors, alert lights strobing, unstacked from the starboard side, resealed.

Kirk said, "Is the Himalaya still rolling?"

"No, sir, it stopped rolling, it appears to be drifting. Lexington is holding position relative to the Himalaya."

"How is our position?"

"We are in no danger, even if we lost all power. Gravitational pull of the dead sun is too small at this distance to draw us in this century. Well, I exaggerate, sir. But only slightly."

"Odd. Bring us down another click relative to the Lexington and bring us around mark four. Everyone stay alert. I don't like this." He repeated the alert message ship wide, reminded everyone that they were on yellow alert and would likely go to red at any moment.

Gunner said, "That maneuver exposes us completely."

"We have a constitution class ship with us. Shields are at 95%. We can take that one hit. And it will arrive only after Himalaya exposes her working gun, which she hasn't."

Himalaya's running lights glowed from her stained and corroded exterior. And other lights on her mottled skin flashed in hypnotic sequences. She was an ugly beast of globes and old additions and repairs and nooks and crannies. The long burn where they'd slagged her topside gun showed black. Why were they drifting if not because of a decaying orbit?

Minutes ticked by.

"Give me a countdown in the corner to Potemkin's arrival," Kirk said.

Even visually it was clear that Himalaya was drifting.

"Bring us around another 500 meters mark four."

"Are you certain?" Gunner said.

"Mr. Toyvan. you are out of order."

His voice was chastened. "Yes, sir."

The screen now showed Lexington in one quarter view from behind, facing off with the behemoth of a cargo ship.

Kirk watched the countdown.

"There is fuzz on the scanner," Spock said.

Kirk jerked his head in Spock's direction. "Fuzz? Bots?"

Nav said, "Why would they drop bots here?"

Kirk slid to the front of his seat but didn't trust his leg to stand. "Unless it's shells with a different payload. Put an overlay on the forward screen, Spock."

A flickering appeared on the image off the stern of the cargo ship, shifting toward the Lexington. The drop was likely sitting still, but the Lexington was powering forward to keep position with the enemy.

Kirk hit the switch. "Lexington do you see that scanner haze off your bow?"

There was a long pause which made Kirk sweat in the perfectly conditioned bridge air.

"Negative."

"We suggest you put on some reverse thrust, Lexington."

"What is it?" This wasn't Captain Sulu, but Lexington's Nav still responding.

"Looks like a bot drop, but not sure why they would do that in space, unless it's something else housed in scanner reflective plate. Either way, not worth encountering."

Kirk turned the switch off. "Helm, have they backed off?"

"No sir."

"What the hell," Kirk said.

Gunner snickered.

Kirk said, "Take us to red alert, Comm, but silence the alarm here on the bridge, please."

Helm said, "Lexington is holding position now, relative to the sun."

Spock said, "Lexington is now stable relative to the reflective noise but brownian motion is in play, the cloud is spreading."

Kirk waited. Nothing changed. He hit the switch again. "Lexington, is there a reason you are not reversing?"

"We don't see what you are seeing."

Spock said, "They likely cannot see it because I am using the cargo vessel's aft end for a secondary scan reflection. Lexington are face on to that surface and cannot do the same. I estimate they have four minutes of safety."

Kirk wanted to order the Lexington to pull back. His arms ached with the need of it.

"Did you get that, Lexington?"

"We are verifying."

"Want to set up a telemetry feed?" Kirk asked.

Captain Sulu's voice came on. "We are currently under a directive banning us from doing that for computer security reasons."

Kirk resisted glancing over at Spock.

"Understood," Kirk said.

Helm said, "They are backing up. Boy they are slow."

"Their impulse engines are about the same size as ours."

A burst of light appeared and a small swirling comet emerged and an explosion lit Lexington's bottomside disk shield.

"Give me a close up of that," Kirk said as another explosion went off.

The forward screen showed a slow motion shell blasting open and a rocket corkscrewing out of it.

Another explosion and this time the comm filled with additional alerts of a hull breech.

"Can you pick off those rockets as they emerge, Gunner?" Kirk said.

"I'll try, sir."

Kirk leaned toward the comm mic on his chair arm. "Lexington, we are going to be firing across your bow."

Helm said, "Boy, they need to get out of there."

"Himalaya is rolling again, Commander," Nav said.

"Time until we are exposed to a working gun?"

"Nine minutes, sir."

"She's even slower," Gunner said.

A burst, Gunner fired, a flare emerged from the beam. He fired twice more, missing. More explosions bloomed against Lexington's shields, this time closer to the edge, which was less vulnerable. Phasers shot out a fourth time and got another hit. Overlapping shouted orders were coming through from the Lexington bridge for damage control and medical teams.

"For once, it's not us," Comm said.

Kirk shook his head. He didn't like this chatter, but couldn't shut it down just then. He killed the connection to the Lexington for now.

Lexington was picking up reverse speed. More shells were bursting open, but the longer rocket time gave Ranger more time to blast them prematurely.

Lexington pulled clear and the shells went quiet, but still showed as a sparse haze on the forward overlay.

"Nice shooting, Toyvan," Kirk said. "And Riley?"

Riley looked up from Engineering where he had been using their tertiary station. He stepped up beside Kirk's chair.

Kirk said, "You were right. I was too bold squatting there in the shadow of their damaged gun. Those shells were prepared for us. We got lucky."

"I think you were right as well. We couldn't cope with their guns if they put on a spin."

"We could have retreated behind the sun. In retrospect what we should have done. I just hate going to ground when the hunt is on. But sometimes you have to. Speaking of which. Himalaya's guns are about to come into view. Helm, put us back into Lexington's shadow. Tuck our tail between our legs."

"We're still alive to fight, Captain," Riley said. He sounded proud. He nodded at the screen. "And they'd be undamaged if they'd listened to us. Do we get that little respect, sir?"

"Ask me later when I've had time to be objective."

Riley wore a pained smile. "Seems to me we don't, sir."

"Don't take it personally."

"Hard not to."

"Look at us, Mr. Riley. We're at our stations covered in blood, we have a Vulcan on the bridge, we're screaming at them about invisible enemies. Would you listen to us?"

Riley smiled for real. "I suppose not." After a pause, "Bet they will now."


	38. Licking Wounds

The communication channel burst alive again. "Ranger, we're going to retreat behind the sun rather than take a hit from that gun while we're making repairs. Coordinate with Nav."

"Acknowledged."

A distortion overcame the image on the screen.

"Himalaya has gone to warp," Nav said.

Another distortion.

"Lexington has followed."

"Ballsy considering the hull breach," Gunner said.

Comm said, "Lexington is instructing Potemkin to change course to cut the Himalaya off, if possible."

Nav turned. "We staying put, sir?"

"Yes," Kirk said. "Take us around the sun. Scanner, Gunner, keep your eyes open for power build up on any of the enemy vessels and anything trying to emerge from the asteroid field. We've got some babysitting to do."

Kirk watched the bridge crew take the ship back to full impulse. Their actions were wonderfully coordinated without conscious effort.

The tactical display adjusted as they rounded the dead star, it showed a plot for Sanchez's unstable orbit of the moon and the drift of the other two intact ships and the tumbling larger pieces of what remained of the destroyed vessel.

Scanner said, "Everything is quiet, Captain."

"Put us under yellow alert," Kirk said.

Someone stepped down on Kirk's right. Kirk glanced up at Spock, who stood staring forward at the viewscreen, hands at his sides. He didn't know how to stand at attention, Kirk realized.

Riley's voice came from Kirk's left. "If you wish to rotate off for a few hours, sir . . ."

Kirk had reached a plateau where his body felt beaten, but no longer threatened to fail completely.

Kirk sat back more comfortably. "We are still at yellow alert."

Riley leaned close and whispered, "Do you want me to declare you unfit for duty? Try me."

Kirk turned his head slowly around. "Riley. I didn't think you had it in you." He looked at the screen again. "I want to be certain everything truly is quiet over here."

"Ten minutes," Riley said. He put his hands behind his back and stared forward, looking serious.

"I want to see if you can hold that face that long," Kirk said.

Riley tried to glare, but his lips were twitching. "Damn you."

Ten minutes passed quickly. Kirk pushed out of the seat and found Spock directly behind him. Kirk glanced between Spock and Riley.

"This is not a good sign," Kirk muttered.

In sickbay, Chapel stood up from the desk in the back. Three cots had been added so there were five patients but one empty table.

"I'll have to wake one of my nurses who just got a break."

"I can assist," Spock said.

Chapel shrugged.

Kirk got on the examining table, tried to lower his head to the padded surface, but it fell back instead. He knew once he gave into his body's weakness, it would collapse utterly. He wanted to sit up and fight more rather than let go. He closed his eyes and the wooziness made him give in.

The monitor beeped, tracking his heart. Chapel undid his uniform shirt all the way down the seam.

Her voice rose and fell, implying she moved as she talked. "Bad muscular bruising, which it's too late to do much about, but the bone is bruised too and the shoulder capsule is sprained. I can give you something for that."

A hypo hissed. Kirk felt vaguely nauseous but it passed.

A moment later. "Give me the large alcopad."

Kirk cracked his eyes open to watch Spock finding something on the cart and handing it over. Kirk's shoulder was enveloped in cold, bringing relief on the verge of intense pleasure.

"Let's seal up these burns before we do anything else."

Kirk must have dropped off. He bumped his face on something hard and found the sterile field glowing under his right eyelid around his right upper arm. All of his clothes had been removed and a heated blanket covered his midsection. He lay with his eyes closed, every muscle relaxed.

Chapel asked for something and Kirk sensed it being handed across his chest.

She said, "So, you're just like all the others then?"

Spock replied, "I do not understand."

An abrading laser hummed. Kirk could feel tugging on the tissues of his arm but numbness otherwise.

"That's because you're just stuck in your own head without any concern for others."

Spock didn't sound upset, just mystified. "I do not have a response to that."

"That's not a good sign."

Kirk said, "Chapel, leave him be. I like him the way he is."

Chapel asked for the connective tissue bio goo. "You like them cluelessly coldhearted?"

"I like Spock. If he wants to change, he can do that on his own. I'm here to be a friend to the person he is."

There was a mucky sound of air propelled goo.

Chapel said, "So you are saying it's my fault I couldn't get affection out of Vulcan for the life of me. I wasn't accepting enough?"

"I'm not saying anything about you. I'm saying, leave Spock alone."

Chapel fell silent, but her movements felt stiffer, less gentle.

The monitor beeped out a faster heart rate. Kirk tried to let his muscles relax the way they had been. They refused. It wasn't his defensiveness that was at issue; it was that he had just pinpointed the reason he hadn't seduced Spock. He didn't want to alter the naive purity of him. The universe was slowly doing that to Spock anyway, and he refused to be a party to it. He longed to wall Spock away and prevent it, not be the cause of it.

A generous coating of dermaskin was sprayed on Kirk and the sterile field unlocked and moved to a cart. Kirk sat up, raising Chapel's brows.

"I need to go back to the bridge," Kirk said.

"We're still working on you."

Kirk used his right arm to rub the back of his neck. His burns felt a hundred times better. "The rest is just bruising. You said so yourself."

She prepped and administered a hypo into his leg, tossed the blanket aside, leaving him naked.

"Go on. Like you implied, you can't change anyone."

"I didn't say anything about that. And I don't believe that to be true. Where's my uniform?"

"In the sanitizer. Spock said it was the only one you had so we put it through a cycle for you."

"Thank you," Kirk said, sincerely happy to have a clean uniform, burn holes or not.

He pushed off the table, accepted a hand from Spock. "And thank you for patching up the crew and the rescues. You've been called on a lot in the last few days and have been exemplary."

He tried not to look at her as he dressed, not wanting her to see him gauging her acceptance of his praise. He'd said his piece; she could do with it as she wanted. But out of the corner of his eye, she appeared grudging.

The bridge was quiet. Kirk watched Spock go to the secondary scanner station before he settled into the command chair.

Riley said, "Commander, if you can take a four hour shift, I will rest."

"And then you'll replace me, I suppose?" Kirk said.

"I think it wise to alternate shifts, sir."

"Have we heard from Lexington?"

"No, sir," Comm replied.

Scanner said, "One of the Colonist ships has a build up of carbon dioxide in their air supply, exceeding one percent."

"They'll be feeling that. Have they attempted to communicate?"

"No sir."

"How soon before it will reach three percent and start making even worse decisions than they have been?"

"Another eleven to fourteen hours."

"Two percent CO2 is allowed in some facilities in Starfleet. Let me know when they cross that point."

Four hours later when Riley returned to the bridge, Kirk was ready for a meal. He pushed his aching body out of the chair and collected Spock with a glance. As he walked to the lift, he bit his lips, thinking this most natural thing was only going to happen a few more times.

Kirk led the way to the mess, which was crowded, but space was being made at the tables for those actually wanting to eat.

A handful of Kirk's shipmates from the Sanchez, people he barely knew, came over to shake his hand and give Spock extra looks. Kirk introduced him as a civilian contractor.

Lapiere, a lieutenant from Sanchez's engineering said, "As long they aren't Militant, Vulcans are okay."

"Yes," Kirk said, getting up to get a cup of what passed as juice in lieu of dessert.

At the synthesizer wall compartment, Kirk was approached by Hully. Her neck was bandaged but she had a healthy tone to her skin and lips.

"Crewmember, how are you doing?" Kirk said.

"Good, sir." She swallowed with extra effort, glanced at the crowd around them.

Kirk keyed in his juice order. "Need to speak in private?"

"Not really, sir. I wanted to thank you. I was told you were there on triage."

Kirk evaluated her over the rim of his cup. "It's Spock you need to thank."

"I was told that, sir." She blinked a few times, looked uncomfortable. "I'm having trouble with that."

Kirk held back forcefully on a smile. "You're color is improving by the second."

She swallowed again. Her blush was less apparent under the dermaskin on her throat.

Kirk was feeling gracious. "I can thank him for you."

"That wouldn't be right."

"My estimation of you just went up, crewmember. Want to just go over and be introduced?"

She hesitated.

Kirk said, "I watched the tape from security of the incident with Spock and I remember you didn't do anything regrettable."

"I was thinking regrettable thoughts, sir."

"And that led to inaction. Even so, only the most seasoned or disruptive will face down a superior. Even a misbehaving one."

They were interrupted by Commander Pizarro arriving with two other of Sanchez's officers. Kirk greeted them and shook off their attention as soon as he could, but by then Hully had slipped away.

Kirk invited Pizarro and company to join his table, did introductions with Spock.

They discussed the battle, the likely timing of Lexington returning, the Ranger's status. These had been Kirk's superiors with whom he'd never had an ordinary conversation while assigned under them.

Others arrived, were hungrily eating standing up. Kirk wondered if Ranger was low enough on supplies that they could run out of food synthesizer inputs. At least water could be recirculated nearly endlessly. He'd better check with Rand.

Kirk said, "Sorry about the crowding. We only offloaded the medical evacuees."

"It's more friendly on a small ship anyway," Lt. Commander Jainer, said. He was keeping his head down like a dog would eat, which was throwing up red flags for Kirk.

If there were questions of loyalty about the prisoners they'd not been able to pick up, then there could very well be the same for some they did pick up. But people of flexible loyalty tended to change back quickly too, especially to the winning side.

When Jainer did look up, it was to look curiously at Spock, who had long since put his tray away and was sitting quietly.

Pizarro turned to Spock. "And what is your background?"

Kirk turned to Spock as well. Among this group, his youth was showing. He was barely old enough to apply to Starfleet Academy.

"Adaptive computing," Spock said.

"How did you end up with this assignment? You work for one of the big six?"

Spock turned to Kirk.

"He means one of the big space defense contractors. No, he doesn't. And his assignment here was a bit accidental. You might say we started out giving him a ride."

Jainer's expression tightened up. "Off a Militant ship."

Pizarro turned to Jainer, looked around the mess. Kirk would get a pass. He'd saved their asses and they knew it.

Pizzaro said, "What's your lovely yeoman's name?"

"Rand," Kirk replied. "You see her here?"

"Not at the moment. Was hoping to be introduced."

Kirk smiled. "No, you aren't. She's like a pair of slippers that are actually stilettos." At their smiles, he added, "She was Commander Overlander's yeoman and we were stuck with each other. We've come to a mutually agreeable arrangement of high professionalism. Let's just say."

"Surprised you even noticed her," Jainer said from his hunched position over his second serving.

Pizarro picked up his juice and stared into it. "Kirk, you wouldn't have anything to liven this drink up?"

Kirk said, "Scott's Maxim: Every ship has alcohol on it, somewhere. I don't know where ours is, I'll confess. I've never looked."

Kirk turned back to Pizarro. "Anything else I can get you?"

Pizarro brightened. "Fast ship to earth, I need to see family."

Kirk said, "After this action is concluded, I suspect we'll be heading to Starbase 7."

"Not earth?"

"Hopefully not."

"Why hopefully not?"

"Many reasons. One of which is there is a lot left to do. The other is I don't trust Command right now."

Sanchez's officers exchanged glances. Kirk felt the odd man out given how good they were at silent communication, a skill honed to a fine blade while they were prisoners.

Kirk said, "Someone at command set up the Spitfire to be picked off by the Rebels. Just like the Sanchez was. It's not too little information dooming missions, it's too much, in the wrong hands."

Kirk sipped his juice, wishing it was scotch now that alcohol had been mentioned. "I'd love to be proved wrong, that we return and whatever was going wrong is fixed. But until then, barring orders at Starbase 7 where we'll likely offload you, we'll keep doing what we have been, which is operating without orders, and trying to coordinate through the heads of the border defense sectors, Stone and Mendez."

Pizarro looked tired and pained. "You've been operating without orders?"

"Yes. Good thing too, or we might not be here. And we've been periodically banned from transmitting any reports with position information."

Jainer said, "That's insane."

Kirk said, "It isn't if you are trying to starve the enemy of information and the enemy is you."

Kirk looked at each of them. "Sorry to bring you back to a less than perfect Starfleet."

Jainer glanced at Spock. "A Starfleet with Vulcans, you mean."

Pizarro bit his lip and looked down at his crossed arms. Jainer also got a pass, at least for a while, given what they'd been through for five months.

Sounding friendly, Kirk said, "Watch Ranger's bridge log of the battle and get back to me on that, Commander." Kirk smiled faintly but stood up with a grimace.

Kirk leaned on the welded-down stability of the chair he'd just vacated. Spock stood as well, waited. Kirk was preparing himself to walk normally in front of so many, hoping Spock kept his help to himself when he noticed Hully approaching, leading a contingent from security. They didn't head to the synthesizers, but came across to their table.

"May I interrupt, sirs?" Hully said.

The mess area quieted. That many red shirts covering bulky bodies standing roughly in a wedge formation tended to do that.

Kirk said, "Of course, crewmember, what is it?"

Hully had something in her hand. She held it out to Spock.

Spock accepted the glittering item, seeming to sense it was something important. He held it up. It was a piece of reflective breastplate, crazed from being overheated and carved into a skull shape with a narrow beamed phaser. Security who had several often strung them on a chain they kept hung in their quarters. They were usually given to fellow security personnel for rescues.

Hully dropped her head, jaw working which made it look even more square. "Thank you," she said, talking to a spot on the floor before him. She stepped back suddenly, stepping on someone else's toes. But the group adjusted easily. There were more than usual averted eyes for security.

Spock gave one of his bowing nods. The group shuffled off.

"A reaper token?" Pizarro asked.

Kirk casually said, "Spock saved Hully's life yesterday. If you'll excuse me, I need to address a few ship related issues with my yeoman." He turned to Spock. "You going to remain?"

"I will accompany you."

Kirk nodded to the three of them and departed.

In the lift, Spock said, "You should be celebrating and instead you must defend me."

"I like defending you." He gestured at the token in Spock's hand. "By the way, that's a pretty big deal to those in security."

"I gathered as much from the ritualistic attitude. I did nothing but stand in for far more qualified medical personnel."

"Who weren't available." Kirk put a hand on his arm. "But I understand. It's not like there were choices. And you handled this properly too. Accepted the gesture with grace." Kirk stopped on the officers and chiefs deck. "I should just page Rand from my quarters. She's probably running ragged keeping everything organized with this crowd."

Spock placed the token in one of the small drawers on his side of the cabin. Kirk had Comm find Rand and made the mistake of resting on his bunk while he waited.

He woke to Spock saying, "I am not certain what the intended topic of discussion was."

Kirk opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but a hand pressed down on his shoulder. An unmovable hand.

"What's that?" Kirk demanded, tilting his head back to look at Spock at the head of the bunk. "Oh no you don't. I'm getting up."

Embarrassed, he glanced at Rand standing between the bunks, head down.

"Are you god damn smiling, Yeoman?" Kirk relaxed. "That's a first. Fine. I'll stay put."

Rand pulled out the table at the foot of the bed and sat on it, padd on her sheer covered knee.

Kirk put his hands behind his head to prop it up. He ached everywhere, but this made his arm ache more. He ignored it. "Do you know how many people I refused to introduce you to today? I hope you appreciate that."

"You wished to discuss something, Commander?"

"Yes, supplies. Let's assume we don't see Lexington or Potemkin for a week, will we make it?"

"No. Not at the current rate of depletion. I mentioned we needed supplies exactly twenty five days ago, and fifteen days ago, sir."

"I know. There are a shortage of depots in our patrol area."

"We are low on foodstuffs, laundry supplies, engineering disposables such as masks and enviro suits, shall I go on?"

"Get Ranger's crew to ration themselves. I don't want the rescues eating less than their fill. And make a list of what we absolutely must have to get to Starbase 7, assuming we have a few passengers still. We'll request it of the big ships and the paperwork will be a nightmare, but I think we have someone who can handle it."

"Yes, sir."

"And how are you doing, Rand?" Kirk felt more comfortable asking this question from a horizontal position.

"Me sir? I have grown accustomed to your rampant violation of regulation. I am getting by."

"I'm glad it's just that. Spock thought you were jealous."

"No." She lost all humor. Kirk wanted to think she was playing along somehow, but it didn't appear so.

"Anything else?" He asked.

She stood, put her heels together. "If you could continue to not introduce me to people, I'd appreciate that."

"Lt. Commander Pizarro's a nice guy. You might be missing out."

"You thought Commander Mitchell was a nice guy, sir."

Kirk raised a finger. "I never, ever said that about Gary. The idea that he's stewing on the Sanchez right now hating the universe is what gets me through a shift despite how much my body hates me right now."

She primly said, "That would indicate that you do need to rest, sir."

"You're dismissed, Yeoman."

The door swished closed. Kirk put his hands back on his chest and closed his eyes. The aches threatened to keep him awake but he was asleep within a minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to have a sequel because it's wrapping itself up by character arc before all the major plot threads get wrapped up.
> 
> The sequel will be split 50/50 between Kirk and Spock's point of view.


	39. Live by the Sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got lost somehow when originally posting.

Kirk woke to a hand pressing lightly on his shoulder. He had been in the middle of a dream about swimming in a spacesuit trying to repair a derelict alien ship that he'd never seen before.

He didn't open his eyes. "I take it four hours are nearly up."

"Yes."

With Kirk's eyes closed, Spock's voice sounded even silkier.

Spock's hand remained, but wasn't holding Kirk down. Spock said, "I am certain Mr. Riley would remain at the conn a few more hours."

"He would." Kirk tipped his body forward. "But if I don't get up, I should turn in my commander's stripes." He stretched his neck out, swung his legs to the side. "How long did I sleep?"

"Two hours, forty two minutes, thirty nine seconds."

"That's not bad. Almost like a vacation." He looked up at Spock, bright in the eyes as ever. "I'm trying not to hate you."

Spock's brows went to his bangs.

"For not needing to sleep so much."

"I see."

Kirk stood, put both hands on Spock's upper arms. Gripped harder. "I can't keep you here. I'm going to fight like hell to, but it's going to fail."

He went to the head to wash his face. "You're too young to be here, actually."

Kirk straightened his uniform, passed Spock and went to the door to his quarters. Spock hadn't moved.

"Do you want to stay here or go to the bridge?"

"I prefer the bridge."

"Come on then. Make the most of it."

"I fear I am going to get you into trouble."

"I don't mind that kind of trouble."

On the bridge, Kirk sent Riley off to rest for six hours. Once he'd forced his body vertical, he might as well remain upright.

"How's the CO2 on that enemy vessel?" Kirk said as he took a seat.

"One point four percent, sir. Likely their converters are not working at all and they apparently have no backup absorbing system."

Kirk called Long to the bridge, asked what they could safely do.

"We can send a jump team with security," Long said.

"You have crew who are willing?"

"If you leave it until it's four percent, they should be pretty compliant. I wouldn't let it get higher than that or they might get hard to handle. The team can wear rebreathers or we can bring over soda lime canister pumps for the work area."

Kirk considered the trajectory diagrams on the viewscreen. "Hard to imagine this is a trap. But I can't dismiss it. Hostages would be really useful to them about now. Do we have enough canisters to simply beam some over there to take care of the problem?"

"We have a store of soda lime but not enough pumps. We could rig something."

"Come up with a plan, but hold off on building anything. Lexington and Potemkin might return before it matters."

"Yes, sir."

Kirk had just accepted a cup of coffee from Rand when the consoles on the bridge chirped in a way Kirk had never heard, and power flickered to select parts of the bridge.

He was reaching for the comm switch for engineering when Long's voice came over the shipwide intercom. "Emergency system reset in progress."

"Doyle, take the conn." The lift doors didn't open. Kirk considered taking the ladder with trepidation, but the lift arrived before he could commit his body to the abuse.

The computer core area outside of engineering was bustling.

Long said, "Commander, one of the virus alarms we set up at the beginning of the mission went off. We shutdown connections and systems immediately but seconds are eons in computer time and I think it's gotten into some of the peripheral systems. How it got here, I don't know."

Kirk hit a comm switch told Doyle to send Spock down to engineering and the call Riley back to the bridge. Left him a message that the ship was likely hobbled.

Spock arrived with Rand less than a minute later. At Kirk's toss of his head, Spock came over to the status display for the computer core.

"Sort this out." Kirk said. "Chief, give Spock your computer credentials."

Kirk walked around to where the engineering crew were pulling glassine connector cards out of a wall unit. Alarms were tripping in other areas of the ship as they did so.

"Sir?" Long said.

"Something about my orders unclear, Chief?"

"No." She pulled up a console and used her biometrics to log it in, disabled the auto logout for when she walked away. "It's yours."

Spock began keying rapidly. Kirk came back over to stand behind him.

"This isn't the same virus."

"What?"

"It has been modified to attach differently to fleet systems and has an entirely new module."

Kirk tried to follow the screens flowing by. Other engineering personnel were gathering around.

Long had been pacing, she came and stood beside Kirk, face hard. She kept quiet, and Kirk was grateful for her professionalism.

Spock said, "Someone has added a logging module. It records a signature of every system this particular virus strain has ever infected." The screen slowed. He pointed at the last few lines. Looked to Long. "Do these look familiar?"

"That's the cooling system in auxiliary. I don't recognize the second. These I don't know at all."

"They are older, likely from the Himalaya."

"Oh shit." Someone said. "The powerpack."

Kirk turned and found Jones whitefaced. "There was a powerpack on one of the phasers taken off a rescue. I thought it looked odd, but I put it on the reconditioner. I took it back off right away, after I realized what I'd done."

"Check the serial number," Long said.

Jones ran off.

"It matters little at this point where the infection occurred given how many systems it is in." Spock said. "How do I get a diagram of systems still connected to this console?"

Long turned the console and put that display on the upper screen.

Screens flew by again. "The infection here has been limited. Somewhat."

Spock typed madly.

"You are editing live memory?" Long said.

"It's the only way to stop it. I have disabled memory swapping for the moment. You have plenty of free memory so it won't matter for a few minutes."

Spock edited a few lines, changed screens, scrolled, edited a few more. He looked up at the monitor.

"I don't find the virus in any other systems connected to this one. I need a connection into the next infected set of systems."

Kirk began to feel nervous about his ship with three enemies floating nearby.

"I'm going back to the bridge. Chief. Spock gets whatever he needs."

"Yes, Commander." She did not sound pleased.

Jones nearly ran into Kirk as he exited engineering. She held a powerpack. "It's not one of ours, but it is 'Fleet."

"Probably Sanchez's." Kirk said.

"I'm sorry, sir." Her voice broke. "I can't believe I did something so stupid. They're not our markings. We don't even have a yellow metallic pen. And we checked for vulnerabilities on the reconditioners. I know we did. We failed you twice, sir."

"Live by the sword, die by the sword." He patted her arm. "Worry about making it up later."

Kirk stepped onto the bridge after a ride in the lift that stalled twice. "Helm, give us some distance from the enemy, mark 90."

"If I can get helm to respond, sir. Controls are non-responsive."

Scanner said, "Power build up on the Sanchez, sir."

"Of course there is," Kirk said.

Riley said, "I'm sure they can see our power fluctuating. They'll take the chance they can."

Riley had vacated the center seat, but Kirk took a position beside it, hand on the communications switches. The Ranger had not budged, despite Kirk's orders.

Kirk hit a switch. "Engineering, helm is going to give you inputs for manual control. We are going to hide in the asteroid field. Comm set up a connection."

Riley didn't hide his alarm. "With sluggish controls we're going to the asteroid field?"

"We are much smaller than Sanchez. We need to take the advantage."

The ship finally surged. The viewscreen shifted.

"Live by the sword . . ." Kirk repeated to himself. "I don't suppose there is any word from Lexington?"

"No, sir."

"Shields are coming up to full?" Kirk asked.

"They were reluctant to come up from half power, sir, but yes, they are now at full."

Toyvan said, "I hated cutting a Starfleet vessel at all, but I guess we should have damaged her more."

"Apparently so, Gunner."

"Sanchez is moving, sir, but not well."

"Good. Hopefully she didn't fully recouple her controls or power grid." She's like us, Kirk thought. Random systems disconnected.

Helm said, "I'm not getting through to engineering on comm."

Kirk turned to Riley, "Distribute communicators here and run down to engineering with more and tell them to keep all channels open."

Riley went down the emergency ladder, boots ringing on the rails. The ship was on half impulse, careening toward an asteroid field with no helm controls. Riley reappeared seconds later, tossed a few communicators onto the deck and disappeared again. Kirk picked them up, handed one to Helm, one to Comm, kept the third one.

"Gunner, do you have full phaser control?"

"I appear to, sir. I show both banks fully charged. Shall I fire?"

"No, be ready to blast any asteroids ahead of us. That's our primary issue."

Toyvan's face seemed to process the significance of that. "Yes, sir."

"Sanchez's status?"

"She's powering up phasers, but slowly."

The lift doors opened. Commander Pizarro stepped out. Captain Yung had been a medical offload, so Kirk didn't have to wonder if he might appear.

"Trouble?" Pizarro asked.

Kirk said, "Yes, we should have damaged her more. A mistake we won't repeat."

"Sentimentality kills," Pizarro quoted. "Her shields are down, according to your display. Why not just hit her again?"

"We're hobbled. Systems are up and down without prediction. We got an aggressive computer virus from a powerpack brought back from the Himalaya."

"Oh boy oh boy."

Pizarro had always said that when things went wrong. Kirk felt himself teleported back in time to recently demoted lieutenant. The asteroid field grew from a haze on the screen to larger shifting objects the computer labelled as rapidly as it could. The screen filled with rock debris growing in detail. For the next few seconds, this was his ship.

Pizarro stood with hands behind his back on the other side of the center seat. "If you want to kick me out, just say the word."

Kirk smiled. "Up to you if you want this view. We currently have no helm."

"And you're enjoying yourself."

Kirk smiled more. "Might as well."

The ship rocked.

"Hit on aft shields. Shields at eighty-one percent."

"Not a bad hit from that distance," Kirk said.

"Shall I return fire?" Toyvan asked.

"Save both banks. We'll likely need them to clear a path for ourselves."

"Targeting is down, sir," Toyvan said.

Helm's communicator chirped and she began madly relaying vector information and control changes.

Pizarro said, "I think we did this exercise at the academy once in a simulator."

"How did it go?" Kirk asked.

"Very very badly."

The ship rocked again.

"Another hit. Shields at sixty two percent."

"Gunner do you have targeting back?"

"No, sir."

The ship was slowing, steering like an old earth sea vessel to pick the best path through the asteroid field.

Kirk said, "Gunner, when you have targeting, open fire on the Sanchez."

Pizarro dipped his head, looked like someone at a funeral.

"Any particular target area on her?" Gunner asked.

"No. Just hit her. We don't have the luxury of being gracious right now."

Asteroids sailed by on the viewscreen. Kirk closed his eyes as one tumbled close, expecting to hear it hit the shields, drag against the hull. He opened his eyes when it remained quiet.

Pizarro said, "Aim for auxiliary control."

"Why?"

"That's where I'd be with no shields."

"You aren't an egotistical blockhead like Gary is, though. He's on the bridge. I'm sure of it."

"I have targeting, sir," Gunner said. "Somewhat."

"Highest probability shot, Mr. Toyvan."

"Yes, sir."

Phasers shot out, struck Sanchez's secondary hull, came out the far side of the ship before being shattered aside by a passing asteroid. The asteroid cracked, sending debris at Ranger's shields.

Nav said, "Sanchez has no shields. It's like cutting butter."

Pizarro said, "Looks like that hit behind engineering. Shuttle bay, storage, botany. Emergency bulkheads will contain the leaks."

Sanchez fired, asteroids shattered and spun around Ranger. Helm took evasive without being told, loudly giving a stream of control adjustments over the communicator. There was a delay, but the ship veered away from an asteroid sent into their path by another asteroid in what was becoming a giant billiard table in space.

"Ready to fire, sir."

"Fire."

The beam cut harmlessly below the port nacelle.

"Sorry sir, targeting is up but sluggish. It's tracking too many objects. Center of the Sanchez isn't actually metal, but empty space and the targeting computer is treating her as a simple object."

"Target the rear half of the disk where the impulse engines are."

"I might hit the bridge doing that."

"That's the risk they are taking," Kirk said.

"Right sir."

An astroid exploded in a phaser strike just off Ranger's starboard side, debris sizzled on the shields, battered the hull. The shields failed.

"Breach?"

"No lights so far, sir. But they might not be working," Engineering replied.

"True," Kirk said.

Toyvan's hands moved over his board. "The targeting computer is now fully responsive, sir."

"Fire when ready."

Kirk watched the phaser charge cycle indicator growing. Toyvan adjusted the targeting. Waited for an asteroid to tumble past. Fired.

The beam struck the underside of Sanchez's disk and shot out through the top at an angle, exiting rearward. The disk went dark.

"She appears to be unpowered," Nav said. "No course changes evident. The impulse engine signature is cooling."

The wireframe added onto the viewscreen indicated Sanchez's trajectory would take her across the top of the asteroid field.

"How long before Sanchez reaches the field?" Kirk asked.

"She's approaching obliquely. Two hours. They're lucky they didn't get moving faster."

Kirk said, "Mark 4, get us out of this field. With care. What's the shield status?"

"Ten percent."

The ship wormed its way out with verbal commands. Kirk sat back in the center seat, amazed his right leg had lasted that long.

"You have a certain style under pressure, Kirk," Pizarro said.

"What's the worst that can happen, Commander? Death?" Kirk said with a toss of his hands.

"Well, that is true. Somehow I never quite thought of it that way."

Kirk said, "What's the casualty status on the Sanchez?"

Scanner said, "I've counted about thirty seven dead. They've still got some leaks. There are seventy three life signs in various areas of the ship." He paused. "I'd say about fifteen of them are in imminent danger."

"Send security to the transporter room, full gear." Kirk turned to engineering. "Is the transporter working?"

"Status lights are green, sir."

"Helm get us in range. But keep the shields up."

"You're going to rescue them?" Pizarro asked.

Kirk turned to his former commander. "Yes. Wouldn't you?"

Pizarro looked forward. "I guess I don't know. It's never been my decision."

"It's not a decision," Kirk said.

Kirk hit the comm for the transporter room, found it working. "Glissen there? Normally I'd have you beam over there and secure the prisoners first, but the transporter is questionable and time is short. So, how do you feel about a shooting gallery?"

"In the transporter room, sir? Absolutely best place for one."

"Get the transporter tech geared up in reflective plate and helmet and then engage whenever you are ready. Looks like two rounds to get them all."

Kirk switched off. "What part of the ship are we retrieving from?"

"Stern area of the disk. They better hurry, oxygen levels and atmospheric pressure continue to drop."

"Send medical to the corridor outside the transporter room. We in position?"

"Yes."

"Transporter room indicates ready," Comm said.

"Drop what shields we have, but be ready on the controls."

Two minutes passed.

Kirk's communicator chirped. "We've got them, sir. Not much of a fight."

"Maybe next time, Glissen."

"Yes, sir. Maybe next time."

The Sanchez rotated slowly on her long axis, blackened, showing stars through her hull. Pizarro watched the screen, gaze pained. Kirk wondered what he'd feel if it were the Ranger out there.

"Shields are slow coming up, sir. At fifty percent."

Kirk tried the comm to engineering, found it dead. Flipped open his communicator. "Status on the virus, engineering?"

"It's putting up a fight," Long replied. "We have to leave several subsystems disconnected a little longer. We got you targeting by wiping the ship's entertainment module and reallocating its computing power."

"Thank you for that."

Comm said, "Lexington reports they are returning. They have disabled the cargo vessel and are leaving it to come and assist. I sent out an alert when the battle started, sir, automatically."

"Yes, of course."

The viewscreen backed out to show the three ships, the ship debris, all labeled to indicate their drift. A cloud of snow-like crystals hung around the Sanchez.

Pizarro said, "Mom and dad are coming back and look at the mess we made."

"I AM expecting them to clean it up," Kirk said with a crooked smile.


	40. Confab, Part 1

"Position established, Captain," Nav said.

"Inform engineering they can do a exterior walk when they are ready." 

Kirk had given up four engineers to the repair effort on the Sanchez, but the Ranger also needed work. They had been sent back around to the other side of the star system where it was quiet, ostensibly to monitor and warn approaching ships away from the spreading cloud of encapsulated rockets the Himalaya had dropped.

The Himalaya had been brought back and parked outside the system and left with security and a pilot crew. There were too many enemy aboard to take them into the ships' brigs.

Jones stepped onto the bridge, head still hanging low.

"Ensign," Kirk said kindly.

"Last subsystem is being connected now, sir."

"Very good."

"Did you verify the virus entry point?"

"Yes, sir. It was my fault. But it wasn't the reconditioner's system that let the virus in. It was the hand weapons alarm system when the item was automatically registered into its inventory. We missed that system on the original risk review."

"Mistakes happen. As long as you learn from them."

Her brows came together and she looked up a little. "You aren't as upset as one might expect, sir, about this kind of chain of mistakes. Considering the consequences."

"And those were?"

She looked up fully. Kirk raised a brow, acted curious.

"The additional destruction of the Sanchez."

"Oh, no." Kirk raised a finger. "You can't take credit for that. That was entirely Commander Mitchell's doing. Former Commander Mitchell, I should say."

"I still feel responsible."

"And what are you doing about that?"

"I am taking the template the contractor Spock wrote to secure intraship communications and applying it to every system. This time. Every one of them."

"I think by the time you have that tested you will have earned your way out of your guilt. If not let me know."

"Yes, sir. I don't know why you are so understanding, sir, but I appreciate it."

"You're beating yourself up more than I could. And that virus saved my life once."

"It did, sir?"

Kirk let himself show a mild smile. "Yes. So, it can cause me some trouble and I'll accept it, knowing that."

"I see, sir." Jones started to turn, stopped. "Am I dismissed, sir?"

"Yes. Go on. You have work to do. Oh, and Ensign, don't forget to sleep."

Kirk sat back in the center seat. He looked around the bridge. He hadn't seen Spock for more than a day and then only for a meal he'd forced him to stop working to eat. Kirk hoped he was enjoying himself. This was what he was signing up for by wanting to join Starfleet.

Comm said, "Ship approaching system, sir. Registration says it's the Hampton."

"The Hampton? Open a channel." Kirk sat back, legs crossed. "Commander Graham, Commander Kirk of the Ranger here."

The connection established audio only. "No way that's James Kirk. What is your status, Ranger?"

Nav turned to look at Kirk. Kirk smiled and Nav made a strange face and turned back to his board.

Kirk shook his head. "Ah. Same Commander Salacia Graham I remember. We're just sitting here acting as a navigational beacon, warning ships of an invisible spreading mine field. And you? You're rather late to the party."

"Got here as fast as we could. Had my engineer telling me coolant temps every five minutes."

"Well, the big boys might let you play a bit, if you ask nice. They are currently on the other side of the system cleaning up after the battle. The battle you missed."

"Too bad your ship's too small to be useful, Kirk."

Fairfeather turned around this time, glaring at no one in particular.

Kirk said, "And our brig is already full. Again."

"Captain Garrovick is hailing us. Gotta run. Hampton out."

"Don't be a stranger. Ranger out."

Kirk signaled for the connection to be cut.

Fairfeather turned more fully to look back at Kirk. "Is that another a friend of yours, sir?"

Kirk was smiling again. He couldn't help it. "She's just unnecessarily tough. It works for her."

Fairfeather made a dubious face.

Kirk said, "And imagine when she gets over there and finds out what happened."

Fairfeather smiled. "Right sir. You are always playing a long game. I forget."

"It's Judo. Why do the work if your opponent is willing to do it for you and you just have to lead them into a fall with a little nudge?" Kirk propped his chin on his knuckles. "And besides, I'm still savoring this little lull."

Shift passed with a soothing quiet that Kirk enjoyed for once, possibly because his battered body was relieved about it.

Kirk swung down to engineering when Doyle took over the conn.

Spock was working at a side station, keying just as rapidly as before.

"How are you?"

"I am well. I am closing your systems up so they are no longer susceptible."

"Engineering did make an attempt at that months ago, based on my clumsy instructions."

"I can see their work. It did function as designed in places. It is difficult to be sufficiently thorough. And the virus has been altered."

Kirk dropped his voice. "I wanted to talk to you about that. Does it look like the handiwork of the Colonists or someone more professional?"

"It is highly professional work."

Kirk frowned. That pointed to Admiral Coyran and the staff in the computer core having released another version, either to the Colonists or into the wild where it again reached the Colonists, which seemed less likely given how remote the base was.

Kirk made a noise of annoyance.

"Difficulty?" Spock asked.

"I don't know whom to trust." He patted Spock on the back. "Maybe no one. I'm going to rest for a few hours."

888

"Can you get away from your ship starting at sixteen thirty, Kirk?" Garrovick asked over the bridge communications. "We're pulling together the commanders and XOs for a discussion on the Potemkin. Maybe we can scrounge up a bite of something not synthesized, but no promises on that."

"Half of our command rank officers are engineering and are currently helping with repairs on various ships. It's difficult for both my XO and myself to attend." Kirk turned to Riley, who wore a boyish, eager expression. "I can send my first . . ."

"We really want you there, Kirk."

Riley appeared soberly dutiful, put his hands behind his back, leveled his chin.

Garrovick said, "I have a Lt. Commander Ipswitch in security, did his first three tours on the Ranger. He's eager to come over and cover for you for the duration for the nostalgia alone."

"That would be acceptable."

"Very good. See you then. Oh, and dress uniforms, if you could. Potemkin out."

The viewscreen returned to showing the moon and starships.

"Dress uniforms?" Riley said.

Kirk did a quick walk of his ship, checked the status of the remaining minor repairs, found them moving along well. He found Spock in engineering, working on reprogramming a pump controller.

Kirk said, "I've been called over to the Potemkin starting at sixteen thirty. I want you safely in my cabin from then until I return.

Jones and an engineering crewmember looked up at this. Looked between them. Spock raised a brow.

Kirk said, "You are working on code. You can do that from the cabin."

Spock nodded once. "As you wish."

"Sir, we can keep an eye on him," Jones said.

"I appreciate that, Ensign, but these are extenuating circumstances." 

In his quiet cabin, Kirk reviewed reports and signed off on them, luxuriating in not being in a panic as he did so. He was wetting and combing his hair when Spock arrived.

Spock said, "You are being unduly careful. Your security are friendly enough now."

"I'm not." Kirk lowered the comb. "Are you doubting me?" he asked, but in a teasing tone.

"Yes."

"The ship will temporarily be commanded by one Humbert Ipswitch, Lieutenant Commander, cousin of one Helmut Ipswitch, formally of the B dash 27 listening and research station, killed a month ago by Vulcan Militants."

Spock dropped his shoulders but kept his hands behind his back.

"Change your assessment of the situation?"

"Indeed."

"Were you involved?"

"We were one of two ships involved, yes."

Kirk breathed in. Set his mouth. Breathed out. "This is a past you are going to have to face sooner or later: the anger of people who are completely justified in their anger."

"I was trying, as well as I could, to put a stop to it. The opportunity had not presented itself to do enough damage in exchange for revealing myself."

"I know that. You put your own life on the line to do that and did the best you could." Kirk touched his arm. "I fully understand that. But it's not that clear to others."

Kirk withdrew his hand. "I'd take you with me to the Potemkin if I thought it possible. I was tempted to send you to the Sanchez with Chief Long and the jump team, but I'm not sure of the situation there either. Keep a communicator on hand. Stay in the cabin." He gave Spock a stern look. "Understand?"

"You think I will disobey you?"

"Why wouldn't you? I don't command you, remember?"

"I have fallen more into the pattern of obeying you."

"Please do so this time. And call me immediately if there is any issue at all."


	41. Confab, Part 2

Kirk escorted Lt Commander Ipswitch to the Ranger's bridge. He was a gangly man with a pile of curly hair on top of his head, shaved bare on the sides. He didn't look dangerous, but if he'd made it that far in security, he had to be either dangerous or very very lucky.

On the way, he looked all around, spotting refit changes. In the lift, he said. "I am honored to meet you, Kirk." Kirk nodded. The lift opened onto the bridge. Ipswitch went on, "It was one for the textbooks that you pulled on the rebels."

Kirk introduced him to the bridge crew, formally handed over the conn, which Riley had been manning.

"Anything else?" Kirk asked.

Ipswitch looked around. "You have a Vulcan onboard?"

"We do. He's confined to quarters for the duration. I thought it simpler that way."

"I see." Then a pause. "Well, that's fine." 

Kirk couldn't tell if what he saw was relief or disappointment. 

He met Riley outside the transporter room. Right on time, Riley arrived in shiny red uniform shirt and pants with satin stripe up the side. His boots even gleamed. He looked Kirk up and down. 

"I don't own dress golds," Kirk said.

"No?" Riley considered that. "I should change back."

Kirk put a hand on his arm to lead him inside the transporter room. "No, don't do that. That would look worse. And I can tell you enjoy wearing those."

"I guess you lost your dress uniform along with your medals. But they might be on the Sanchez."

"I could have bought a dress uniform for this mission. It doesn't matter. I don't really want to wear one."

"Oh," Riley's voice was small and disappointed.

Kirk grinned. "You look good enough for both of us, Lieutenant. Thank you for having us covered."

Garrovick met them in the Potemkin's transporter room. He shook Kirk's hand, painfully hard. Beads of sweat glittered on his cheeks and his hand was damp.

Riley gamely shook his hand after. "Captain, sir. Honored to be on the Potemkin, sir. Can't tell you how honored. Quite a ship."

"Very good, my boy. You seem the chipper sort," Garrovick said.

Kirk rubbed his knuckles over his mouth to hide his smile.

"That's what I'm told, sir. I try my best, sir."

Garrovick led the way to the recreation room door. Riley stood crisply aside for Garrovick to enter first. Garrovick triggered the door and stepped past and stopped just inside.

There were six large occupied tables set with shining dishes. The room full of officers stood up. A few glanced at them by the door, but most stared straight ahead.

Kirk realized in that moment that he should have a dress uniform. It wasn't pomp. It demonstrated respect for his fellows and for the service.

Riley stopped in the doorway, glanced at Kirk. Garrovick gave Kirk a questioning look at the delay.

Kirk took Riley by the upper arm, said to Garrovick, "Your strange behavior is alarming my first."

"I see," Garrovick said. 

Riley followed Kirk to a table by the far wall where there were two empty seats together. Riley kept looking around in concern as he pulled out his chair. As they sat, everyone else did. 

Riley straightened his silverware and then put his hands together to stop them from fidgeting. He looked to Kirk for a cue. Kirk gave him an affectionate look. He appreciated his first more so at that moment than he had the entire mission.

"Captain Yung," Kirk said, surprised to see his former commander upright and across the table from him. "How are you, sir?"

"Doing passably well, Commander Kirk. Thank you."

Kirk scanned faces. There were two other crew from the Sanchez that had been offloaded with Yung, looking in need of about ten good meals, and maybe a memory wipe. Also department heads from the Lexington and the Howe.

Small plates were brought around by yeomans and some younger crewmembers. 

Riley leaned against Kirk and whispered, "This doesn't look like a meeting."

"It is."

"It's an odd one. Why did everyone stand up?"

Their conversation was attracting attention from the table. Small smiles on faces that needed to smile.

Kirk said, "I think we're the guests of honor."

"We are, sir? Why?"

Kirk put his hand up as if to hide what he was saying, but he didn't drop his voice. "That's a very good question, Lieutenant."

Yung reached for the salt with a hand that seemed aged by thirty years. "Many at this table owe their lives to you and your commander. That's why we recognized your arrival. You'd have to ask the others for their reasons."

Riley spoke complacently as he poked at his food with a fork. "Yes, Commander Kirk was worried about retribution. He's a bit sensitive to that."

More glances. Some curious. 

Garrovick came over between courses, drink clinking in his hand. "We should have mixed the tables up a bit more. Doing well, Kirk?"

"If I'm having real food, I'm always doing very well, thank you, Captain."

Garrovick's paw of a hand came down on Kirk's shoulder. "Knew you had it in you, Kirk. I knew it from almost the moment I first saw you. I can tell when someone isn't spending all their brainpower thinking about themselves. People like that always do great things."

"Right place at the right time, sir."

"Bullocks, Kirk. You were the one who radioed the right place to us."

Kirk tilted his head to the side in concession.

"My wizards come to me with a model, are certain where to send the fleet still in earth sector, you know, to nail those bastards. There you are, trying to convince us the model is in error. And you were right. So you can't use the happenstance excuse, Kirk. Won't fly."

Garrovick said, "I can't just convince that many ships to move without justification. So I find a way, don't ask me how, you'd have to ask my communications genius, to get a private message to an old friend in command who is currently on administrative leave, and he says, Admiral Coyran, that is, says to listen to you. That you of all people should know. Says his computer people tell him you must be some kind of savant."

Kirk thought that Garrovick's yeoman should be watering his alcohol, to about ten to one.

The yeomans streamed into the room with the next course. Garrovick patted Kirk's shoulder, and pointed to the rest of the table with his drink. "Don't let Kirk near your computers. Whatever you do."

Garrovick departed. Riley had an uncomfortable look on his face when Kirk glanced at him. 

Kirk raised his glass. "Might be a good idea to drink all the alcohol on the Potemkin."

The Howe's communications chief raised his glass. "Aye."

End of the second course, Graham came over. Insisted on luring Kirk away to chat.

"Ehem," Riley said.

Kirk looked back. "I'll behave myself."

"I should think, sir."

Graham stopped at the dessert table. "What'd your first mean by that?"

"Long story."

She gestured with a stick of sugar coated berry mixture. "You have a strange relationship with your officers."

"Not really. He's a bit nervous being here. And I like him so he gets some leeway."

She spent time selecting another dessert stick. "What do you like about him?"

"His boundless positive attitude and naive energy. I would have thought it would make me a bit annoyed eventually, but I rely on it, to the point where I'm ready to defend it from damage, even at the likely risk of holding him back professionally."

She held out a blue stick prickly with sugar crystals. "Want one?"

"Of course."

Kirk bit into sugar. It tasted like sand from heaven.

"I want to talk to you alone." She tossed her chin. "More alone than this." She waited for him to respond, but he was eating a second one. "And maybe more if you want."

Kirk made a reluctant face. "That I can't. But I don't want to explain that here."

"Want a tour of the USS Hampton?" She gave him an alluring look. "I don't have fruit sticks, but I have an experimental warp core containment field."

"How can a man resist that?"

"You'd be surprised."

Kirk chose a third stick, thinking he better find time to run on the treadmill. "I would like to talk." The stick was mint leaves coated with sugar. Just that. Fresh mint leaves. Fresh. "I'm curious why you don't seem to hate me anymore."

"Don't flatter yourself. You were merely annoying."

"I noticed you standing up like the rest of them." Kirk hadn't planned on pulling that out, but he enjoyed doing so, far too much.

"I'd have looked like the obnoxious one if I hadn't. And fuck all if you didn't save the day, you annoying little pipsqueak." She said all this while smiling politely and eating a dessert stick. 

Kirk wanted to laugh, but he wasn't sure if at himself or her or the entire situation. "I think someone needs to blow off some steam."

"I had ideas about how to do that, but you are nixing them. You really taken?"

"I'm not discussing that here."

"Oh. That's a Serious Topic."

"All of my topics are serious. You've caught me after my first drink in weeks." Kirk eye-checked Riley. He was chatting with the Sanchez's old chief engineer who used to be a bit chubby, but like the rest of them, was thin as a rail, eyes too large. A sequence of visitors were stopping at the tables to chat with Sanchez's crew, who were mostly sitting.

Graham said, "At least your first has a tailor. You should ask him for his transmitter id."

Kirk smiled. "I don't have a dress uniform. The weight of all my medals would ruin it."

She licked some pink sugar off her lips. "Yeah, I bet they would. In that special dream you have."

Kirk relaxed. Gave her his best eye smile. "You should read a little farther into my record sometime."

"You keep flattering yourself that I care enough to."

They shifted down the table as others arrive to get sweets.

Graham said, "I'm surprised Yung survived. Did you read the preliminary report?"

Kirk swallowed hard and nodded. Yung had been tortured to keep the rest of his old crew working hard and behaving. Kirk had wanted to skim it, but had felt a responsibility to read every word, to try and share the burden of memory. 

"Did you know what was going on?" Graham asked. "When you launched your little suicide mission."

"No. I just couldn't sit and wait. At worst, I figured we'd keep the enemy busy until help arrived. I couldn't see a downside. And I couldn't bear waiting. I was weak, if you want me to be honest. No one happens to view it as that is all."

"And you might get a medal out of it." She poked him in the chest with a stick. "You could really use one or two to brighten up that worn out uniform."

Kirk tried to gauge her seriousness. "I really don't need one." He sipped his drink. "What I need is to circulate." He looked around the room. "See how much damage Garrovick has done."

"He's telling tall tales about you already."

Kirk nodded. He preferred that interpretation. "And then I need to rescue my ship from a guest commander. I want to request a chance to see my old shipmate whom I promise not to deck. Then if the offer of a tour is still open, I'd love one."

"The high value prisoners from the Sanchez are in the Lexington's brig. You want company?"

"Huh," Kirk considered that. Pictured himself there with and without her. "I want it to be about him and me. I thought he was a good friend. He'll somehow make it about you. He's a bit of a player with women."

He could see she was tempted to say something, but nodded only.

"I saw that," Kirk said. 

"Commander Kirk?" The Howe's communications officer approached. "Captain Yung would like a word with you."

Kirk nodded to Graham, and stepped over to take the vacated seat beside Yung, turned it to face his old captain. The officer on Yung's other side excused herself.

"Kirk. I think I acted the boob in the transporter room and wanted to make amends."

Kirk smiled. "It's all right, sir."

"It really isn't. I didn't imagine there was just your ship involved in the mission." He shook his head, looking birdlike with his thin neck. His thoughts went distant, came back reluctantly. "You always won the monthly ship-wide chess competition. I remember. You did better off my ship than on it. That doesn't speak well for me."

"I have trouble with authority, sir. I do better when I'm simply handed all the authority."

Yung tipped his head, laughed lightly. "I see." He sighed, and his smile became a grimace. "It's been a long time since Wolfram Thesus Five."

Kirk's heart sank. He couldn't comprehend being a prisoner that long.

Yung said, "We didn't get a chance to even check the status of the drops. The Colonist Rebel ship dropped out of warp, started dropping bots. We went to alert, moved in to attack. The enemy was already on board, in the crew. They cut power to the shields and suddenly there were enemy beaming in all over the ship." His hoarse voice grew stronger. "You survived all those bots, I hear. Seems incredible."

"I got extremely lucky."

"It was nearly as bad on the ship. They had phasers set to kill. Wanted engineering crew more than anyone else. Didn't want anyone from security, or anyone ancillary."

Kirk bit his lips. It had been nearly half a year ago, but it felt like he was brutally losing all those shipmates now.

Yung said, "You lost a few in the rescue. We need to have a nice memorial. For everyone."

Kirk's eyes felt hot. "Good idea, sir."

Kirk wanted to tell Yung he needed to rest, but as a commander, he'd hate to be told that, so he didn't. He understood this man considerably better than he used to. He dearly hoped he hadn't been an actual hinderance to him as one of his underlings. 

"Mitchell," Yung whispered. "I thought I saw Mitchell during the battle for the Sanchez, doing something questionable, but I was stunned as soon as I was identified. I walked the corridors of that vessel during those minutes of the attack thousands of times in the last five months. And I still remember that moment Mitchell looked up at me, and I wondered what in the hell. That bridge log of yours that's getting handed around. Of the battle. Best thing I've ever watched. Warmed my heart watching Mitchell eat it like that. "

Kirk felt cold trickle up his back, thinking back over those moments from an entirely new perspective. Passed around.

Yung said, "You set up a real team on that bridge."

Kirk said, "It was a lot of work. Patience. Drills. More patience."

"It does take a lot of work. And it takes balls of cold tempered iridium to have a captured Vulcan Militant on your bridge. But you'd think the two of you had been working together a decade."

Kirk felt his nerves flutter. He'd been flush with victory and not seeing these things clearly. He'd wanted Spock there to show that Vulcans could be part of Starfleet. Show who, and how, Kirk hadn't taken the time to think through.

"He's insightful."

"That's an understatement." Yung took a long drink of the diluted juice he'd been served. "You took everything I would have said was a weakness when you were a lieutenant and made them strengths as a commander. Including your inability to follow any rules."

"No, sir, I like rules when I have to keep others organized."

Yung smiled again. "Everyone does. Well, I interrupted your flirting with the dragon lady. She's right up your ally."

"Sir? Oh. Graham. She's fine, sir."

"Glad someone thinks so. She'll likely keep moving up."

Kirk wouldn't have considered touching his captain previously. He used the excuse of needing a support to stand up to put a hand on his shoulder. Yung put his hand over Kirk's before he could retrieve it.

"Thanks again, Commander."

"Any time, sir."

"I really think you mean that."

Kirk brought his attention back to Yung. "I do."

Kirk stopped at each group in the room, then waited until Riley finished soaking up a story from Captain Garrovick before he caught his attention and tilted his head toward the door.

Kirk said, "I have a few things to do, but I want you to take over the Ranger while I'm doing them."

"Ah. Yes, sir. Sorry, I got distracted."

"I hate to cut short your dress uniform time, but I'm uneasy about Ipswitch."

"Party's run late. I've had my time."


	42. Rage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lost Chapter 39, Live by the Sword, at some point. I just reinserted it, in case you missed it.

Kirk followed Riley to the Ranger's bridge and put him in charge of the conn. Offered to escort their guest commander to the transporter room.

On the way, Ipswitch looked around, said, "I. Was. Hoping to meet the Vulcan."

Kirk's protective instincts slammed to the fore. He didn't speak right away, thinking through his reactions before simply saying no. He stopped. "I'm curious why."

"I assume you read about my cousin and that's why you confined the Vulcan to quarters. My cousin and I grew up together."

"I'm truly sorry about that. I want all of this to end so no one else suffers the same."

"Do you have a brother?"

"Yes."

"So you understand."

Kirk tilted his head. "Well. No, I probably don't on that count. But that's another matter."

"Right."

"Commander Ipswitch." Kirk breathed in and out. "I want to respect your desire for closure, or whatever your intent is. But I also want to protect a being who his very important to me. I'm trying to balance the two and not succeeding."

"I suppose it's not closure. I'm too far from that. But I need to move on. I have this all consuming, violent hatred and I just want revenge. I can't see past it. It's a wall in my mind."

"Understandable."

Ipswitch held up his hands formed into claws and looked at them. "It's not all Vulcans. I know that, but only factually. I can't know it emotionally."

"It's only a very small fraction."

"I know, but I would do anything to any of them and feel much better."

A repair crew from engineering came out, slowed as they passed, and went on. They were alone again.

Kirk's voice was low and for some reason his bruises had started to ache. "I do truly understand what you are going through."

Ipswitch took a harsh breath but calmed down. "I believe you do."

Kirk said, "I've been where you are. I had to put faith in someone I much preferred to beat into a pulp. And so far, they have come through. It's been cleansing. I didn't think it would be, I thought I'd hate myself for giving in and being disloyal to . . . I don't know what. Myself? I wouldn't have done it except for mission necessity."

"Hearing you, of all people, say that at least makes me feel a bit better."

"I don't know where it started, but people think more of me than they should."

"Seems justified from here, Commander."

"I hate to stand in the way of you getting on a better path." Kirk bit his lips as he considered the logistics. "I'll let you speak to Spock on one condition: that you have no weapons on you. I assure you, hand to hand you don't stand a chance."

Ipswitch held up his arms. "I didn't come armed to command your vessel."

"Wait in the transporter room. There won't be a tech until we call one."

Kirk led Spock from his quarters. "You need practice with this if you want to live among humans. But are you really ready for a difficult confrontation? You don't have to agree to do this."

"I have been meditating for three hours. If I am not ready now, I will never be."

"You'll likely be helping him too. Hopefully that makes it easier to tolerate the emotions that are about to be headed your way."

Kirk had Spock wait in the corridor, went in first. He scanned Ipswitch, who said, "You aren't the trusting sort."

"If you harmed him, I would do something that would end my career." He put the scanner away. "When I say I understand your desire for violence. I mean it."

Ipswitch became still for long moments, staring at Kirk. "I see. Maybe I see."

"The being I'm bringing in here is the brother I would kill to protect." Kirk waited for that to settle in. "Ready?"

Ipswitch didn't respond right away. Eventually he shook his hands as they hung at his sides, nodded.

Kirk called Spock inside. Ipswitch's arms bent from lax, his fingers moved independently of each other.

"Commander Ipswitch, this is Spock. Spock . . ."

Ipswitch was breathing heavily. "This isn't helping."

Spock looked to Kirk for assistance. 

Kirk backed up. "I'm not involved. You both have to find your own way."

Spock spoke first from a well of calm. "If I could have changed anything, I would have."

"About what?"

"About what transpired with your cousin."

The color slipped from Ipswitch's face. "You talk like you were there."

Kirk rubbed his hand over his mouth. Stepped back farther.

"I was. I was among the Militants, attempting to betray them. I finally managed to do so, but not in time to save your cousin or several others."

Ispwitch's face worked. "Were you there when . . .?"

"I was."

Ipswitch rubbed his cheek, pulled it up and down. His eyes were popping slightly. "I loved my cousin as a brother you know. But pointless to tell you that."

Spock looked up. "I could do nothing. I would have betrayed myself and still not changed the outcome. I was in that situation of my own will. I sought out that situation because I logically needed to do something to change what was happening. But the right opportunity had not yet arrived, so I had to carry on, pretending. Vulcan could not have a war with the Federation. Countless more would suffer the same pain."

Ipswitch sounded accusatory. "That's why I joined Starfleet. To do something useful."

"I did not have that option."

"So, you were there. This isn't going make me feel better." He swung his arms. "I'd give anything to have been there."

"You would be dead."

Ipswitch pulled on his cheek again.

Spock said, "Would your cousin have preferred that?"

Ipswitch's shoulders fell. "The hell," he said in a tearful voice. "Did he fight?"

"He did not get his weapon raised."

"He had it in his hand when he was found, neck snapped."

Spock nodded. His arms shifted oddly, as if trying to get out of his own skin.

"Spock?" Kirk said. 

Spock turned partway to him. "I do not like the feel of death." He swallowed hard. "The feel of the spirit coming loose from its physical anchor, especially unexpectedly."

Kirk started. "You can sense that?"

Spock nodded.

"That explains your difficulty doing triage. The Vulcans doing the killing. Do they feel it?" Kirk uncrossed his arms, became demanding.

"No. My family is of the priest and priestess class and have a heightened sense of the world where souls reside. Most Vulcans have a weak sense of this, even if they are not aware of it. Pre-Surak, even the killing of animals could lead to a dangerous blood lust. The Militants seem especially mind numb to it."

"Maybe that's part of why they are," Kirk said. 

"I do not know. Possibly."

Ipswitch said to Kirk, "You didn't know this?"

"We've talked some about what happened. But not about this. He had trouble dealing with the wounded when one of them died awaiting treatment." He turned to Spock, "You all right?"

"Yes. Discussion helps."

"Does he really have emotions?" Ipswitch asked.

"Of course he does," Kirk said, resisting putting a hand on Spock's back. He remained beside him, thinking it was time to cut the conversation off.

Ipswitch sounded resigned and pained. "You did that? You felt my cousin's soul leave his body?"

"Yes. If he had been Vulcan and there were a priestess present, the katra, his soul, would be guided to the mountain where souls reside. But I am not skilled in this, nor do I know the proper dispensation of the human equivalent. But I did learn to try and calm what seemed to be panic, or that is the closest equivalent available in Standard. A kind of thrashing at the moment of separation from the physical realm. I was never blocked from doing this. I believe the others thought I had a fascination with the moment of death, rather than a horror."

Ipswitch rubbed his cheek to clear away tears. He was dazed. "You tried to help him like this? To calm his soul?"

"Yes."

Ipswitch rubbed his nose on his cuff. Kirk stood unmoving.

Spock sounded calmer. "I regret that I was in a position where any preventative action would have accomplished nothing except losing the opportunity to take action later. Helplessness is a poor excuse when it is life or death."

Spock seemed to notice Ipswitch's emotional state. He spoke slowly. "I did not intend to upset you thusly."

Ipswitch turned away, shaking his head. Kirk turned his own face away, blinking to cool his heated eyes.

"I should go," Ipswitch said. "I don't know what to say."

Kirk went to the panel and signaled the Potemkin to initiate transport rather than call in a tech.

"Oh damn. I need a minute," Ipswitch said when the Potemkin responded.

Kirk told the tech on the other end to stand by. Ipswitch kept his head down. Eventually nodded.

Kirk signaled for Potemkin to beam him out.

Ipswitch raised his head. "You deserve the honor you are getting from your peers, Commander."

"I appreciate you saying so." But Kirk was thinking that he'd been failing. Failing at getting Spock to tell him what happened.

When the transporter effect faded, Spock said, "I did not handle that well." He looked sharply at Kirk. "I have upset you as well."

Kirk smiled. "Not really."

Spock shook his head slowly. "I am incapable of understanding."

Kirk put a hand on his shoulder. "You brought him comfort, Spock."

"I do not know if I succeeded in guiding his cousin's katra. I am untrained. It is unlikely, in fact, that did anything positive."

"It doesn't matter. He wants to believe so he chooses to believe. And anyway, the fact that you tried is significant." Kirk stepped close, rubbed Spock's shoulder. "I haven't been prying, even though I sense you holding back on things you don't want to talk about. I'm going to be prying more from now on."

Eyes distant, Spock nodded.

Kirk checked the bridge, mostly to get his own head on straight again. He needed the calm noises and the mundanity of it. 

Riley pushed out of the chair and stood beside it, arms clasped behind his back, hands at the elbows, which meant he was a little out of sorts himself.

Kirk stepped down into the circle. "How are things?"

"Fine sir. Chief Long reports they have a six more hours of work and then they will return to the Ranger for a time. Switch off personnel. A barge ship is en route to collect the Sanchez and to pilot the cargo vessel to a earth to offload the prisoners. The other ships are going to be left derelict."

"Very good." Kirk waited, knowing there was more to come given the amount of fidgeting.

Riley dropped his gaze and his voice to a whisper. "I hope I didn't embarrass you too badly on the Potemkin, sir."

"You didn't at all. But we can talk about it later if you like."

Riley looked up with pained hopefulness. "Are you certain I didn't?"

"Positive."

"I was an idiot, sir. I didn't know what was happening." He unhooked his arms to put a hand on his head. "And then I asked. I can't believe it."

There were glances coming from the bridge stations.

Kirk smiled. "You were exemplary. I mean it. You are talking to the man who doesn't even know where his medals are." He patted Riley on the arm. "Do you understand now?"

"Yes, sir. I do. We were here alone trying to deal with far more than we were really capable of, but somehow pulled it off. And everyone says that's heroic, but it's just doing what you have to in circumstances that went to hell. You have no choice. Things just shouldn't happen that way in the first place. One's own fault or not."

"Exactly. But you'll get a medal out of anyway." Kirk looked around the bridge. "Everyone will. For those of you hoping for one. In the meantime I need to face someone. I'll be over on the Lexington if you need me, and then on the Hampton. I'll have my communicator."

"The Hampton, sir?" Riley said with a brow raised.

"Yes. Any comment?"

"No sir." But Riley was grinning stupidly.

"Yeah, I bet you don't have a comment, Mr. Riley."

Kirk stepped into the Lexington's brig. The lieutenant on duty stood up, roughly at attention.

"Commander, sir. We were informed you were coming. He's over here."

Mitchell was alone in a cell. Most of the Colonist Rebels were being housed on the old cargo ship for the time being. 

Mitchell slid his stool over to sit precisely framed by the glow of the energy bars in the doorway of the cell.

Mitchell glanced up and immediately down again. "Come to gloat?"

Kirk looked around for a seat. A guard brought him an identical stool to Mitchell's. Kirk sat down on it.

"You want me to gloat, I can. Would that help you? I'm curious what you were thinking when you decided to join the other side. That's the only reason I'm here."

Mitchell looked away. His brown eyes reflected the blue-white light of the security beam emitters, seemed to see forever. "The rebels weren't all bogged down. They were doing things. You know how 'Fleet is, all rules and limitations. Nothing gets down."

"You never talk to any brass, how would you know." Kirk said this to fish indirectly, see if the traitors had any contact with Command.

"I wouldn't talk to brass if they showed up to shine my shoes." He sounded honest. "They are half the problem." He chewed his lower lip and looked up. "So, my old friend, Jim Kirk. Still aren't the same rank as me."

"No," Kirk said with a small laugh. This was a long-running mockery between them. "I do get called captain on the bridge. I have that to keep me warm at night."

"You going to fuck up again? Make them take your bars."

Kirk smiled, truly smiled. "Gary, if you knew how creatively I'm breaking regs right now and how blatantly, you'd be proud." Kirk clasped his hands together and rested his forehead on them a long moment. "I just wish I knew what happened to you."

"You could have killed me. Why didn't you? No shields. What were you doing?"

"We didn't have a targeting computer for part of that battle. When we did, we took out the impulse. Were you hoping to die? That explains attacking when you have no shields. You didn't care about anyone else on that ship?"

"They were all doomed. And they wanted to attack. They learned to like fighting, not like the pussies left in 'Fleet. Always trying to do the right thing and not offend anybody."

Kirk thought about the drop on Wolfram. "You were willing to even kill me."

"We were in a battle," Mitchell said as if talking to an idiot.

Kirk remained sedate. "I mean on Wolfram. You could have given me some warning."

"Are you kidding. You'd have run to the captain. You wouldn't have been loyal to me, even though you called me your friend. Admit it. That's what you would have done. Why should I have been loyal to you in that case?"

"I see." Kirk stood up, hooked the stool with his foot to shift it away.

"Going already?" Mitchell was all mockery.

"I have a lot to do. I have to figure out a few more regulations to break so whatever admiral gets the call can pull my bars without having to feel badly about it."

Mitchell laughed. "Fucking hero Kirk. That's always you. 

The security Lieutenant approached, picked up the stool with one muscular arm. "I'm surprised you let him talk to you that way, sir."

Kirk laughed through a smile. "You know what's funny. He's always talked to me that way." At the door to security, Kirk turned. Mitchell hadn't moved, was bent over, chewing the edge of his thumb. "Good luck to you, Gary."

"Easy for you to say."

"They're going to put you in rehab prison, I'm sure. If you are ever treated badly, let me know. Okay?"

Mitchell didn't respond.

"Gary?"

He talked around his thumb. "Yeah. Sure."


	43. News Travels Fast

Graham met Kirk in the transporter room. She'd changed out of her dress uniform, but looked nearly as crisp in her standard yellows. She took him to the engine room, as promised, gave him the full brochure reading of the warp core containment. Kirk felt like they both knew it was for show.

She said she had more booze in her quarters. Kirk was as thirsty as he'd ever been.

"So, Salicia," Kirk said. She had poured him a drink within seconds of arriving.

"My friends call me Sal."

"So, Salicia . . ." He smiled over the raised glass.

"I outrank you, remember."

"Sir, I have a question," Kirk said. He took a large swig of the drink. It wasn't the good stuff and it burned. He resisted coughing, cleared his throat three times to avoid it.

She shook her head.

Kirk said, "How's your interaction with Fleet HQ been?"

She put her drink down and sat on the edge of her desk. Her long legs made this look comfortable. "We've been in Mendez's sector out of Starbase 7. So, out of the difficulties. It was he who ordered us here after a communication from Lexington. There weren't enough ships assigned in these sectors."

"There's not supposed to be a need."

"Probably why the enemy choose it. I have a question for you." She was sitting with her hands folded over the desk edge beside her, looking artificially relaxed. "I just have to ask this. You really keeping a captured Vulcan in your quarters?"

"Yes." Kirk hadn't intended to drink more of the moonshine, but he took a swallow to cover his expression.

"Please don't tell me that's why you're not available for something recreational."

"I won't if you don't ask."

Her eyebrows crinkled up oddly.

Kirk said, "Ever see a jealous Vulcan? You don't want to."

"Yeah, I've heard that." She was re-evaluating him.

"I'm unfairly portraying him. He's pretty harmless. Kind, actually. If you get to know him."

She blinked and shook her head. "Really, Kirk, this isn't the fourteen hundreds. You can't just keep a random mistress captured from the enemy in your quarters."

Kirk made himself sound offended. "He's not. He's a friend of mine. I knew him from before we captured the ship he was on. Please."

"The captured ship of the enemy. This doesn't clarify things."

"Why do you need them clarified?"

She stood up, crossed her arms. "I just do. I remember you on the Potemkin. No official record of you coming or going. You were this obnoxious little demoted lieutenant suffering shell shock. You were on our ship but officially MIA. And now the stories I hear about you. It's really something. It doesn't add up."

"I can't answer all of that. But let me explain how it is on my ship." Kirk gestured as if he were lecturing. "I go to my quarters and I always have a friend there. He's available for a game or just some personal interaction. He understands the stresses of running the ship, more or less. Browbeats me to take care of myself. Makes sure I get a good night's sleep on occasion. He knows me really well and is outside the command line and not off limits for recreational activities. It's rather nice."

She scowled. "Well, damn it. Now I'm envious as hell." She hesitated. "But that can't continue, can it?"

"I know. I've never deeply regretted the wind-down of a military action before."

"I'm trying to be sympathetic, but those of use who've been living like monks all along have a hard time seeing your loss for what it is." She sat back on the edge of the desk, picked up her drink, took a swallow with no ill effect. "You went over to the Lexington. How was your old boyfriend?"

"Oh, shit," Kirk said, remembering what Mitchell had said before the first battle, which was in the log, which was being passed around. He avoided swearing again. He managed to snort. "Gary is the same asshole I remember, but didn't understand the depths of. And for the record, not an ex. I will admit to a lot of exs, many of whom aren't, really. He was just a good friend, or I thought he was. He used to steal my girlfriends. Even if he didn't like them. Went out of his way to do so. If we are putting facts into the record, I'd like to put that one in."

"So, you have had girlfriends? In the past?"

"You don't know me at all."

She finished her drink. Exhaled the vapors. "I know you better than I did. Read your entire record waiting for your call. Screw you if you don't actually have enough medals and commendations to ruin a uniform."

"I sense hostility."

"Do you? I do that. I need to stop."

"Are you uncomfortable with me? Is that why you're doing it?"

She looked him up and down. "Yeah." She tried to drink more, found the glass empty and put it down loudly. "You even know what makes people tick. Damn I hate you."

Kirk put the glass farther from the edge of the desk and stepped close and hugged her.

"Really?" She said. But she gave in and relaxed marginally.

Kirk held her for a good half minute. She seemed tall and broad, but had a much smaller frame than him once he had his arms around her. He couldn't imagine being alone in a command. Although he was probably going know soon enough.

She said, "At least you're staying long enough my crew will think we did do something against regs."

Kirk pulled back, smiled.

She added, "And you could use some cover."

He still held her loosely. "I don't know if that's cover or just demonstrates how easy I can be."

"You don't seem easy to me."

Kirk stepped back. "I used to be. I think I've pinned myself down this time."

"Aw, let me be the first to offer congratulations."

He tried to sound cute. "Thank you. I accept."

\-------- 8888 --------

It was well after sunset. The feeds were updating in silence on the large monitor on the wall of the study. 

Amanda was using the natural light from the stored photon panel by the darkened window to work on beading a traditional Vulcan sash. When she and Sarek first married she spent long shuttle flights doing similar work. In a fit of adaptation to Vulcan, she had sewn the clan symbols onto a sash that a tailor had subsequently sewn onto a set of formal robes. Amanda had been appalled by his wearing this to dignified functions, but the distinctive earth technique had made them noteworthy, and Sarek had worn those robes out, which was unusual. She had only done small projects after that.

This sash was farther along than it should be, indicating she'd been working on it when he wasn't present.

Sarek watched her spear a bead from a tray designed to make this easy to accomplish. He glanced up at the feeds when they shifted. Amanda had the items filtered for good news only, which was also unusual. 

Opal Colony reacts with relief to freeing of Rebel prisoners captured nearly half a year ago caught Sarek's attention. He switched off the filters and a barrage of rapidly changing titles scrolled by.

USS Potemkin and USS Lexington reported to have negated last bot production facilities of Rebels.

Battle at the top of the galaxy! 

Little USS Ranger battles captured USS Sanchez.

Sarek selected that one and told it to auto play the rest of the feed. 

A woman came on the screen. "Starfleet has released confirmation that the USS Ranger was indeed the ship that took on the much larger Starfleet vessel USS Sanchez, long in Rebel hands."

Amanda looked up. Moving slowly, she put the sash down, forgetting to hook the needle. A tiny stone bead pinged to the floor.

A man came on the screen standing before an official looking building. "If that's true, Idra, then that was likely the largest of the remaining Rebel bases, was it not?"

"Yes, Boyd, it likely was. According to experts I spoke with, the Sanchez was likely being held in reserve for after the war ended, which is why it never saw action. Three smaller Colonist Rebel ships were destroyed or captured in the battle, along with a retired cargo ship, which had been outfitted with previously unknown warp engine technology."

"There are other Colonist Rebel ships still on the loose, aren't there, Idra?"

"Yes. But without a base, they will not be able to easily restock with food supplies, or weapons, or the best news of all, additional bots. Far flung colonies need to be on alert for raids, if those ships choose them as an unofficial supply depot."

"You received an unofficial copy of the log from the Ranger recorded during the battle with the Sanchez. Can you tell us about that?"

"Yes, Starfleet has officially released only this video snippet from the bridge of the Ranger, taken from an open communication channel with the Lexington, in the middle of the battle."

The screen changed, showing the darkened bridge with James Kirk in front of the center seat, trying to stand straight, but clearly in pain, uniform blood spattered. On the right side stood a familiar figure in a red shirt.

"That's Spock," Amanda blurted. "In uniform."

"The shirt lacks the Starfleet patch. It does not qualify."

"James is badly hurt." 

There was no audio, just the newswoman talking. Kirk turned his head to say something to Spock, who stepped away to a station on the left of the screen.

"Spock isn't injured, at least," Amanda said.

Kirk took the center seat rather than have his legs fail him. He turned to give an order to someone on the right of the screen. 

Amanda said, "Is it unusual to have a civilian working on the bridge of a Federation starship?"

"Exceptionally so." 

When the clip from the bridge ended, Sarek pressed the control to play it again.

The newswoman was saying: "This channel recording was taken after not only the ship battle but after a daring rescue of prisoners from the bot manufacturing cargo ship. Experts tell me that such an attempt by what would have been at most half the crew of the Ranger, less than thirty personnel, was categorically foolhardy."

"But it worked," the newsman said.

Amanda smiled. 

"You find that amusing, my wife?"

"It sounds human."

"The human responsible for the safety of our son."

The newsman said, "They did rescue quite a few starfleet personnel, all of whom could be armed to further assist in the rescue of the others. I'm sure that helped."

"Does this mean the war is over?" Amanda asked.

She held out two fingers, turned upward. Sarek placed his own across them. They had been at odds too long.

"I estimate that the probability of that is improving."


	44. In Memory

The viewscreen showed the Lexington riding ahead of them. The wireframe in the corner showed the Hampton behind. Ranger, with her limited warp field potential, was badly slowing down her escort ships. At first Kirk had been amused by the stately flotilla, but now he felt the inconvenience of it for the others.

And there would be ten and a half days of this. Kirk wished he could order the Lexington on ahead. Graham he could tolerate annoying for that long, the entire crew of a constitution class ship, much less so.

Kirk brought his concerns up directly with Captain Sulu from a connection in his quarters. As usual, Spock wasn't around.

"Commander," Sulu said, "we are making repairs, some to the superstructure. Repairs I'd like to have completed before Starbase 7, otherwise we will be ordered to dock, which is the last thing I want to have happen given how long that might take. The slow trip is really not a problem."

"Is see, sir. That makes me feel better."

"And you deserve the escort, Ranger."

"Thank you, Captain."

"And if you need any more supplies, let us know."

"My yeoman is pretty thorough, but I will definitely let you know if we run short of anything. Ranger out."

Kirk watched the feeds.The public feeds were full of news articles about the battle. He normally ignored news of events he'd been involved in, but this time he skimmed a few articles. The video from the bridge taken when Lexington first arrived had been released officially by Starfleet. Whoever had made the release, they were likely trying to decrease tensions with Vulcan. The credit tag read Starfleet Public Affairs.

After skipping the video four times and reading the news surrounding it, Kirk finally watched it. He was as much a mess in it as the news writers claimed he was. He couldn't even stand straight, yet refused to sit in the chair right behind him. Even he wondered what their ship was doing out there, on its own, clearly outgunned. 

But as Kirk knew well from past experience, Public Affairs loved a hero, and was playing up that narrative. At least the articles mentioned his entire crew often, given the near-suicide mission to the Himalaya that required half the crew and the risk and requirements every last one of them was under during the battle.

And Spock simply resembled bridge crew. His presence had attracted less critical attention than Kirk had expected. He looked like he belonged. Why question that? Spock's official contractor status was cited often. Kirk silently thanked Rand for that. That, along with repeated analysis of how shorthanded such a ship would be under good circumstances, let alone after a costly boarding, and Kirk's act of regulatory rebellion against degrading Federation politics had been neatly smoothed over. As long as the image of Spock there on the bridge fixed into people's subconscious. Kirk would be happy.

Kirk chased down said roommate. Forced him to join him for dinner.

"You are definitely working too hard," Kirk said over a plate of the usual vaguely flavored cubes that seemed even more so since the dinner.

"There is a great deal to do."

"If you're enjoying yourself, that's fine. If you are doing it because you are pulling an Ensign Jones and trying to make up for something, that's another thing."

"I do wish to deserve my place here."

"You do. Don't worry about that." Kirk wiped his mouth. "But on that note, is the virus gone?"

"Yes. I have a copy of the earliest infection code I could locate. It is on a padd with disabled communications. Clearly labeled. Some of the engineering crew wished to examine it."

"Do you know how to write a report?"

"If I have an example to follow. I can do so."

"I shouldn't mention it because I don't want to assign you more to do than you've already assigned yourself. But in terms of learning, it would do you more professional good to write a report than code more." Kirk pushed his plate away, unfinished, despite the recent threat of the ship running out of food. "If you want to take credit for the virus, I'll take the heat for lying about it earlier. It's up to you."

"Do you wish to retain the credit?"

"I find it amusing that I managed to convince them I did it. One of my prouder moments." Kirk smiled.

"Then I can file the report comparing your earlier copy to this one. Since logically, you would still retain a copy."

"Seems a little unfair to you."

"It is not very Vulcan to write and release such a thing. And it might increase said planetary tension."

"Ah. Good point." Kirk picked at his pushed-back plate. "I also want you to be on a schedule. I want you to take breaks. At least once every 72 hours, I want you resting at least twelve of those. Okay?"

"You are assuming you command me."

"Because I do." Kirk relaxed. "It's not an unreasonable schedule given that for a human it would be a horrible schedule." Kirk tensed a little. "Are you trying to avoid me?"

Spock raised his chin. "No."

"Just checking."

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk sat alone in his quarters planning a memorial service to be held on the Lexington. He'd lost three crew: two security and one reserve from the second shift bridge crew. He stared at the names. He knew them, but he didn't know them. At least not well enough to give a decent eulogy. They'd lost three from the Sanchez's prisoners as well, and Kirk felt even worse about them, given the months they'd survived in miserable conditions, only to die being rescued.

The door chimed and Riley stepped inside.

"Mr. Riley. I need to know if you are willing to skip the memorial service and hold down the bridge."

"Yes, sir. That's fine."

Kirk smiled faintly. "Not much for funerals?"

"I don't handle them well, sir." He bowed his head, put his hands behind his back the way Spock tended to, not the way Riley usually did. "At the risk of you deciding I need to buck up . . ."

"I wouldn't do that. Everyone can remember the dead in their own way as far as I'm concerned. And it's convenient for me. I'm the only person who ostensibly knew everyone."

"You're giving the eulogy?"

"I'm going to try. Not something I want to be good at. But I need to be good at it, nevertheless"

"Understood, sir."

"Spock will be here. He can stay in engineering if you're in charge. Unless you want me to confine him to quarters?"

Riley didn't respond right away.

"You want me to confine him to quarters," Kirk said.

"If you are offering me the choice, that would be my preference. When you are in charge, Commander, or even just on board, you're responsible for what happens. I don't feel confident being responsible for what happens if he has the run of the ship. Sir." Riley blushed faintly.

Kirk stood up. "That's acceptable, Mr. Riley. He's my responsibility, not yours."

Riley shifted his feet, looked down at the deck.

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk stepped off the transporter platform back on the Ranger. Yeoman Rand sniffled beside him, rested her knuckle against her nose. The other four crew transported in the last batch strode out, lost in their own thoughts. There was something about death that it didn't really sink in until memorialized. Maybe it was just that the memorials weren't held until there was time to reflect.

Rand said, "I was fine, sir, until the Lexington's choir sang."

"They sounded pretty good in the hangar," Kirk said. He handed her a handkerchief. "Not like you to be unprepared, Yeoman."

"No, sir, it's not."

She daintily blew her nose. "I'll write myself up for it."

Kirk checked in on the bridge. They were seven days out from Starbase 7. 

The lights on the Lexington's warp nacelles winked on and off. They'd return to warp as soon as all personnel were returned to their proper ships. Kirk waited on the bridge to oversee the increase to warp speed. The Ranger was certainly well accompanied on this journey. Kirk wanted to relax, could justify relaxing. But relaxing was to court death through being unprepared for the unexpected. Kirk rubbed his eyes. Doyle was standing nearby, waiting to resume the conn.

Kirk nodded to him and departed the bridge.


	45. Correspondence

Spock was sitting on his bunk, padd in his lap, feet up on the side of Kirk's bunk. He dropped his feet as Kirk entered, studied Kirk's face, said nothing.

Kirk sat down, wished for a drink, even of Graham's moonshine. Even Graham had been subdued for the memorial. Kirk imagined it was partly superstition, keep your own crew safe by deeply respecting the losses of others.

Kirk realized he was foisting his mood off on Spock. He looked up at him to check.

Spock said, "I do not intend to disturb your contemplation. Do you wish to be alone?"

"No. I don't. Please stay." Kirk propped a pillow behind himself and sat back. "I'm torn between wishing I knew them better and thinking I should make it a point to get to know all of my crew better, and being afraid that will make me a terrible leader who doesn't take enough risks."

"An understandable concern."

"It's different being all the way at the top. When I had a team or a squad, it was us as a unit being put at risk, by someone else. You make a lot of small decisions that can have huge consequences, but the decision to be there isn't yours."

Kirk looked at the padd in Spock's lap. "What are you working on?" At Spock's hesitation, Kirk said, "I need a distraction. What have you got? You seem a little uneasy, actually."

"Do I? I am not pleased to hear that I am revealing that." Spock looked down at the padd. "It is a letter from my father."

"He caught up with you finally."

"Indeed."

"Vulcans have a long life span. How many centuries are you grounded for?"

Spock's expression turned inward.

Kirk said, "Oh Spock," and stood to switch bunks.

The letter was in Vulcan, displayed in a stylish script Kirk found unreadable.

"You need not concern yourself with me," Spock said.

Kirk put a hand on Spock's thigh. "Talk to me a bit. What's he say?"

"He insists I return home."

"Not a surprise."

"He is most disappointed in me."

"The hell he is." Kirk's already emotionally sensitive eyes grew hot. "Did he really say that? In those words?"

"It is implied."

"You're sure you're not just reading into it?"

"I am confident that he is quite angry. That he wishes I had not disobeyed his will so blatantly. Twice. Disappointment would be a natural outgrowth of that. Would it not?"

Kirk squeezed Spock's thigh. "I guess it would. Are you trying to compose something back to him?"

"Not yet. I have instead completed this." He held up the padd. It displayed an application for Starfleet Academy.

Kirk couldn't keep his relieved grin in check.

Spock said, "It asks for signatures from two current or retired Starfleet personnel."

"I'll sign it." Kirk took the padd. "You already had Long sign it. I'm insulted not to be first," Kirk teased. Handed the padd back.

"I started it a few days ago. I did wonder. What does an applicant do if they do not know any Starfleet personnel. It seems unfair requirement."

"It's not a requirement. It's marked optional. The academy just wants to know about you, that's all. And knowing someone who is or was in Starfleet isn't always a positive thing. A lot of people follow a family member into the service without thinking it through, knowing as little about themselves as someone who might be the first from their town, or colony, to go. The academy admissions knows that. It's just something they'll bring up during the interview, to make sure you understand what you're getting into."

Kirk watched Spock looking over the application. When he'd scrolled to the bottom of it, Kirk took the padd away and set it aside. "I'm reminded that I intended to talk to you more."

Spock's expression shuttered.

Kirk continued, "You took me utterly by surprise with your story of guiding souls."

"You misrepresent it. I am not a high priest. It was merely an attempt to assist."

"Still. I should have already known about that. But things got busy and this ship's mission took priority. But right now, we're being escorted by a lot of firepower and there is a lot of time to talk."

Kirk clasped his hands together. "Should we start back at the beginning? You arranged to get to the Gatling Outpost where you were being picked up." Kirk waited for a response, but didn't get one. His hair prickled him around his neck and upper back.

Spock nodded vaguely.

"You met with someone from the Militants." Kirk waited. "Spock?"

"Can we instead begin at the end?"

Kirk pulled his head back. "Why? Did things get better?"

"In a sense."

Kirk's entire body was on alert, a symptom of being in action recently. He gave in. "Okay. If you are more comfortable with that. Tell me about how you sabotaged the ships. Tell me about how you got messages out. What were your crewmates like?"

Spock lifted his head as if from sleeping. "It took several weeks of careful subterfuge to complete the sabotage in a way that I could trigger it when necessary. As I mentioned, I had cultivated an impression of being technically unknowledgable. That put me below suspicion, but it also removed any excuse I may have for being seen working on critical systems. Fortunately, the ships were undercrewed and I could find windows of time when there was no one in certain areas of the ship. I had to teach myself the systems before I could modify them. It was the first time I realized how much I could learn and how rapidly if the need was absolute."

"But you managed."

"There were some close calls. System alarms that went off because one of my modifications put an ancillary system out of specification. But my modifications were not discovered when that was adjusted. The ancillary system was blamed for the malfunction. What you call luck, I believe."

"So you are saying it wasn't we humans who made you believe in luck?"

"Not in the least."

"What was your commander, Zuram, like?"

"Remarkably like my father when he is highly displeased. Although Zuram would maintain that attitude for weeks at a time."

Kirk considered the message Zuram had wanted passed on to Spock, but held back on mentioning it. Spock was talking freely right now.

"Zuram treated his purpose with great gravity. And just as your leadership attitude is reflected in your crew, his was as well. For the most part, my shipmates were quiet and focussed, but there were a few fights."

"Fights over what?"

"The crew were a mixture of Vulcans from different backgrounds and two of the fights were the result of some perceived insult based on this. The other was over a potential mate. That one very nearly ended in death from blood loss." Spock's distant gaze moved around. "It was strange to see Vulcan blood spattered over deck and bulkhead like that. The scent of it. The radiating unbridled violence from those fighting. These were all things Vulcan to the core, but completely outside my experience."

"You got the messages out the same way as the sabotage?"

"Messages were easier. I utilized a system of code words my father set up many years before for when he wanted to send messages home that needed to pass through the hands of strangers.  
We were allowed communications. A few on the ship were implying they were elsewhere. Some were trying to recruit others."

Kirk hooked his hands around his knee and leaned back.

"Did you fit in?"

"I am not certain of your meaning. I remained by myself most of the time."

"You didn't get any arguments from anyone about joining? About being allowed to join?"

Spock looked away. "There were some. They were resolved by Zuram."

Kirk read Spock's posture as reluctance. "You are going to have to talk about this with Starfleet before you'll be admitted. Best get used to discussing it."

Spock kept his head turned away. "I understand."

Kirk looked over Spock's smooth face, lean neck, narrow arms, and saw a cadet.

Spock said, "I will submit the application if you hand the device back to me."

Kirk smiled, handed him the padd. "Any questions?"

"There is still a technical fast-track available. Do you think I should apply to that?"

"I think you need the enculturation of the full three years."

Spock looked up, gaze curious.

Kirk said, "You could learn the necessary math and science and the rules and drills and procedures in a week or two, but that's not the only thing the academy is for. It might not even be the primary thing academy is for. But it's your decision. I think you're going to excel either way. I expect you'll be more comfortable in your first assignment if you've done the whole three years. It also gives things time to settle down politically from the trouble we're having now."

Spock spoke slowly as he asked, "What is the likelihood of being assigned to the same ship as you?"

"Not very high." Kirk rubbed his chin. "Given your skills, you'll be offered something on a larger vessel."

"And if I do not take it?"

"You don't have much flexibility in your first assignment. Senior officers get some flexibility. As a nub, you go where they send you."

Spock looked down at the padd.

Kirk asked, "Are you doing this just to be near me?"

"No. It is what I want to do. But I had intended that we would see each other with regularity." Spock sounded like someone treading carefully. "Do you not wish for this as well?"

The cabin air seemed too still. "Spock." Kirk put a hand around Spock's arm. "Spock. I do want to be with you, but some things just can't be easily arranged. Joining Starfleet means giving up a lot of yourself." He gestured at the padd. "You have to do this because you want to. It can't have anything to do with me."

"Logical."

"I don't mean to sound disloyal to you," Kirk said. "I've never wanted to be beside anyone as much as you. But I still have duties. And eventually you will too."

Spock's face grew wry. "That is one of the things about you I find pleasing. You have an acute sense of responsibility. That is very Vulcan."

"It can be human too."

"Of course."

"Speaking of which. You need to reply to your father."

"Indeed. That is also a responsibility."

Spock sent off the application, waited for the relay to acknowledge the message was in the queue. He brought the letter from his father back up. His brows grew angled as if pained.

Kirk got up and pulled the drawers out above his bunk, stacked them neatly underneath, slipped out of his uniform shirt.

"I'm going to get a few hour's rest before the split shift. Join me when you're done."

Kirk lowered the lights and settled on his side, as usual more aware of his aches once he decided to rest. Movement nearby made him open his eyes. Spock was lying down on his back beside him, padd in his hands.

"Done already?"

"I am considering what to write in reply." He sounded uncertain, and his face, lit from below by the padd, looked haunted.

Kirk shuffled closer and draped an arm over Spock's chest. It bothered him a bit that he could feel the effects of calm from their proximity even when Spock was agitated.

"What do you want to say to him?" Kirk asked.

"A great number of things. All of which I cannot."

Kirk closed his eyes and spoke quietly. "Why not?"

"None of them are appropriate. He is my father and there are boundaries I must respect."

Kirk tightened his arm, aligned his fingers with Spock's ribs.

"Want to tell me what you want to say and I can see if we can rephrase it?"

"Informing my father that I wish to continue to disobey him is not a message that can be made acceptable through rephrasing."

Kirk opened his eyes. Spock still had the letter up, which was strange as he certainly could have memorized it.

Spock said, "I am two different beings. It is frustrating."

"I know what you mean," Kirk said.

Spock turned his head to Kirk. "Do you?"

"I do. Here on the ship you are one person, but at home you become someone else."

"It is illogical. And I do not know if it is reassuring to find that it is a common experience. But I can sense it happening reading this letter."

Kirk pulled closer, pressed his face against Spock's arm, closed his eyes. "You are an exemplary ship's technician, Spock. And prime officer material. Even if that letter makes you feel like a disobedient schoolboy."

"I must assume your opinion in matters of my qualifications is material given the respect you get from your peers."

Kirk smiled against Spock's shoulder.

Spock's voice fell. "My father does not mention anything that I might have accomplished, what I might have learned, how I might have matured mentally. His blanket disapproval of events does not even leave open the possibility for it. Everything I have done was wrong."

Kirk said, "Your dad has a lot of pride."

"Indeed. But I do not see the relevance."

"He's making it about him. And the impact your actions have on him. And I suspect on your mother as well."

"You're reading of old Vulcan must be better than I would have expected."

"I can't read a word of the squirrely script used in that letter, Spock. I'm just guessing."

Kirk could hear Spock turn to him again, but he held his eyes closed. Kirk said, "Want me to try and compose a reply for you?"

"You seem to understand my father better than I do. But I am keeping you from resting, which interferes with your duties."

"Spock, I have duties to you as a friend, too. How about this. Tell him that you concluded, logically, that you had to do the things you did, and that you don't regret doing them, especially given the outcomes. You do regret that your actions strained him and your mother, but even knowing that would happen wasn't sufficient for you to hold back. As to him ordering you home. Tell him you will obey him for now if he insists, but that you are making your own plans for the future."

"I rescind my observation that you understand my father."

Kirk smiled. "Spock, you won't get control if you don't take control. You have to be that other person you know you are and not revert to old form. Hold onto who you are now, put boundaries on that and don't let them be breached. You know that Spock who denies me stimulant shots and bullies me to rest? Let that Spock reply to the letter. But send something right away. There is no room in any context for delay given everything that's happened."

"I will send a variation of what you suggest. I suppose it cannot result in any more trouble than I am already experiencing."

"That's the spirit."

Kirk fell asleep while Spock tapped on the padd propped on his abdomen. He woke to find Spock covered with the blanket off the other bunk, eyes staring at the ceiling in meditation.

Kirk pushed up to his elbow, leaned over and kissed Spock on the closest eyebrow. Spock's eyes closed a long moment, then he blinked rapidly.

"Feeling better?"

Spock shook his head.

Kirk stepped over Spock, found his uniform shirt. "I'm going to the bridge. You won't get a reply for a few more hours. In the meantime, send a message specifically to your mother, if you haven't already. That should keep you occupied a while and out of engineering."


	46. Secrets Withheld

Kirk found the booze. He was certain Chapel would have some, and he was half right. She happened to right then, but didn't normally. It was engineering that had been running a still behind the waste water scrubbers. But they had run out of carbohydrate inputs to feed the yeast when the ship ran low on supplies, so they had run out of booze as well. But during resupply, the Hampton had shared some of their finished stuff. It was a bad as Kirk remembered it, but he took a beaker of it from Chapel anyway, feeling he should do his share to keep the crew as dry as possible. It was times like these, on the "safe" run home, that people got sloppy and drunk.

Kirk sat on Spock's bunk, rested the stoppered beaker beside him. Spock was due to take a break in two hours. Kirk extended the monitor arm and read reports while he waited, ready to hunt Spock down if he was even a minute late.

Spock was right on time.

Kirk said, "So, Cadet. What'd you learn the last two days of solid work?"

"I read the Starfleet best practices manuals for embedded system design. And began a report critiquing them vis-a-vis interface security, per Chief Long's suggestion. But I truly am not a professional in this topic. I intend to let her submit my comments as part of a report of her own, rather than submitting them myself."

Kirk smiled, picked up his beaker. "Spock, it's not as if they are going to blindly follow your suggestions. Your ideas will likely be filed away. Consider it something for your resume." He held up the beaker to look at the liquid through the glass.

Spock said, "Ah yes. Engineering was lamenting that the evaporative concentrator of ethyl alcohol had to be dismantled."

"Yeah, I didn't have any choice. Alcohol is off limits. Have a sip."

Spock sniffed it and handed it back. "May I point out the glaring discrepancy at present?"

Kirk grinned. "No." He sipped. Coughed. "I hope Ranger's engineering was doing better than the Hampton's at brewing and distilling. I'd like to think we have at least that much pride."

Spock sat on Kirk's bunk opposite, clasped his hands together in his lap. Kirk took another sip, sat back.

"You were telling me about your time with the Militants," Kirk said.

A veil passed over Spock's face. Kirk held out the beaker. Spock shook his head. Kirk took another sip. If he avoided breathing while swallowing it wasn't as bad.

Kirk said, "Did you have any idea that you could feel someone die the way you can?"

"No. I was passed over for testing for such skills as a child, despite my family history of such. And I was never present for a death. If I sensed anything like it at a distance, I would not have understood what it was."

"And you don't suffer any ongoing effects from it?"

"I have learned to meditate away the emotional traces of the experience. I have honed my meditative skills rather significantly since leaving Vulcan. I discovered that I needed to appear more Vulcan while on a Militant ship than I do at home."

"There's some irony. You were with the Militants for over four months. Did you get to know anyone? I'm worried that you lost someone in the battle that you haven't talked about."

"I was with the Militants for three months."

"It took you that long to reach them?"

Spock stared at his hands. "Yes."

"You were on your own somewhere like the Gatling Outpost for over a month? No wonder you are reluctant to recall it."

"I was not on my own." Spock stood up. Looked like he contemplated leaving the cabin.

Kirk sat forward, stunned by what appeared to be a flight or fight response.

Spock's voice became flat, his hands fell lax at his sides. "I do not wish to discuss this topic at this time."

"Spock, come here." Kirk patted the bunk next to him, stoppered the beaker and set it aside. "Come on."

Spock sat beside him with deliberate movements. Kirk pushed up Spock's uniform sleeve and took his bare forearm in his hands.

Spock haltingly said, "As to your other question, no, I did not become personally familiar with anyone on the ship. Zuram checked in on me frequently, to make certain I was not lacking anything, that my tasks were acceptable."

Kirk swallowed hard. "When Chapel showed him your biomed scan to prove you were all right, he had a message he wanted passed on to you. But we never did."

Spock did not look up. He sat with his head bowed, looking pensive.

Kirk said, "When we offloaded him, I asked if he wanted to change the message, but he said no. Do you want to hear it?"

Spock nodded vaguely.

"He said, Tell him I do not know where we failed."

Spock's brow lowered a twitch, but he otherwise didn't move.

"Do you understand it?"

"I am not certain what you mean."

"Do you know why he needed to tell you that? Even after I told him you'd betrayed him, he still said the message was valid."

"Perhaps."

Kirk rubbed the underside of Spock's forearm, set his arm down with a definitive movement and held it firmly. "There is a big hole here. A month of your life, and mysterious messages from the enemy. I don't like it."

Spock lightly shook his head, spoke sharply. "It is personal. It does not concern you."

"I hope you get away with that answer to the academy admissions counselor. I don't think you will."

Spock's head bowed a little farther.

Kirk said in sympathy, "You got in over your head."

"Indeed," Spock agreed with a weak voice.

Kirk put a hand behind Spock's back and leaned closer. "You don't have to suffer alone. Talk to me a bit, Spock."

Kirk added after a long pause, "Please."

Spock tipped his head back to rest it on the cabinets behind them. He sat that way a long time, shook his head.

He said, "I faced situations I never imagined I would, ones I had feared since childhood. Situations that dwarfed anything I have previously been challenged to survive with my sense of self intact. I learned a truth about myself that I had not suspected."

When Spock fell silent, Kirk said, "That you can sense the katra at the point of death?"

"No." Spock bit his lips a long moment. "I learned why I am half human."

Kirk tipped his head to better look Spock in the face. "There's a reason? Other than your mother is human?"

"There is a reason my mother is human."

"Care to share it?"

"No."

Kirk tipped his head back as well. Considered the overhead. "That's a puzzler."

"It does explain why my father is so strict. Putting those realizations together made it easier to compose the last few letters to my parents."

"Did you get a response from your father?"

"Yes. He said we will discuss things in person when I am home."

"That's not a bad answer to get in this situation. And did you get a reply from your mother?"

"Yes. That one was easier to reply to in turn."

"I imagine." Kirk tightened his hands on Spock's arm.

They both fell silent.

"It is your rest period," Spock said.

"It's yours too. Want to spend it on my bunk?"

"I notice that you have already removed the drawers."

"I plan ahead."

Spock stood and changed into his robe. Kirk was already in a t-shirt and workout pants. He lay on his side, leaving room for Spock to lay on his back, as usual.

Kirk studied Spock's profile as the Vulcan settled back and rested his hands on his chest. He watched Spock's arms go lax, caught in place by his interlocked fingers.

Kirk said, "When things are busy and you have to run full on to stay alive, it's easy to ignore past events. Until the fallout from them sneaks up on you. I wish you'd talk to me."

Spock didn't look at him, he looked slightly away. Kirk leaned over him, touched his cheek. "Spock?"

Spock closed his eyes. Held them that way.

"Okay," Kirk said.

Kirk reached up for the lights and settled back on his pillow. He rested a hand around Spock's upper arm and tried not to worry that Spock was going to be kept out of Starfleet Academy, either by his influential family or doubts about his time with the Militants. If there was anything Kirk could do to change it, he would, but his usual hopeful determination was failing him.


	47. Starbase

Starbase 7 filled the viewscreen. To Kirk it felt like the end of something he wasn't ready to let go of, even though it meant safety and a chance to finally rest and heal, both the crew and the ship.

He put himself on ship-wide intercom. "I know we're all in dire need of some unwinding but we're going to prove to everyone that this crew can hold itself up to any other in Starfleet. We are going to finish repairs and resupply and debriefings and reassignments, and then, and only then, are we going to indulge in R&R. This ship made history on this mission and we can solidify what we stand for in everyone's eyes for a good long time by having everything ship-shape before we let loose. Believe me, at that point, I will be the first to buy everyone a round. I know it's tough to put off, but do this for yourselves. Show your peers up one more time. Kirk out."

Comm said, "Captain, they want us in spacedock to repair the port and starboard sensor arrays."

"That's fine, Ensign. Follow Base Control's instructions, Helm."

On the way to their docking position they passed the Ticonderoga, a sparking shower burst from the area of her hull repair, which had been cut out to a wide L shape back to the ribs. Sparks burst again. Parked two stalls down from her was the smaller of the captured Vulcan ships, sitting dark.

The Ranger came to a stop in her slip with the help of tractor beams. Pressurized gangways stretched out to meet the hulls. Work crews were already waiting with new equipment.

Chief Long came to the bridge following a trolley with new interface circuits for the bridge sensor consoles.

"They want their dock back quickly, I sense," she said to Kirk. "But I want to do the work on the bridge consoles ourselves, so we have to stay ahead of the exterior work."

The consoles were summarily pulled out, equipment stacked on other darkened consoles. The bridge became unusable, but that didn't matter in spacedock, Kirk kept reminding himself.

Kirk left Doyle in charge of the ship since Spock was standing beside Long, watching the equipment unpacking with interest. The two of them were discussing equipment interface issues. Kirk took the gangway at a slow pace to counter the bounce of it, braced himself mentally for his meeting with Commodore Mendez.

Mendez came to the doorway of his outer office to greet Kirk. His suite was busy with assistants and others coming and going, carrying on group conversations.

Mendez said, "Come in, Commander Kirk. Come in."

The others in the reception area turned to them, all smiles. More people were arriving, looking around at faces until they found Kirk's, nodded in greeting as if they had met before.

Mendez shook Kirk's hand and held it. "I've been reading your logs with great interest."

Kirk smiled. "I should be more careful what I say."

"Come into my inner office away from your fan club, I have some official business I need to conduct with you."

Kirk took up a position before the grand desk. Mendez sat on the edge of it.

"I can't tell you how pleased we are with you. Brilliant strategy. And appropriate restraint."

"I'm sure the Lexington would have done just as well, just a few hours behind us."

"She wasn't heading your way at all until your transmission. Bastards would have slipped away from us yet again had you not went out on a limb to locate them." He picked up a stylus and turned it in his fingers. "But before I heap on my accolades, I have a diplomatic issue to resolve. As soon as normal diplomatic channels were reestablished with Vulcan, the second message we received was a demand for the return of the Vulcan individual you have on your ship."

Kirk frowned and nodded that he'd been expecting that.

Mendez said, "Why is he still on your ship?"

"It's not exactly been convenient to drop him off. And he's put himself to good use. I got him classified as a contractor. The paperwork is in the system. And he wants to stay."

"Well, whether he wants to go or not is irrelevant. We just reopened normal relations with Vulcan and this is already a major row on their end. And we can't have that."

Kirk looked away, at the flag stand behind the desk, at the laurels.

"Kirk." Mendez was firm. "You will return him to a Vulcan outpost on the way to earth."

"Earth? Why are we going there?"

"Don't you want to go?"

"We need to clean up the last of the Colonist Rebels. We can't have any little skirmishes breaking the peace while it's fragile."

"Kirk, stand down for a minute." Mendez stepped away, went behind his desk.

Kirk followed, despite heading into personal territory.

Kirk said, "You are going to send us to earth for some showy ceremony when we still have a job to do. And I want my crew on board to do it, including the Vulcan."

"You can ask for a lot of things right now, Commander, given what you've accomplished, but not that. Why are you so adamant? Vulcans are notoriously hard to work with."

Kirk propped his fists on his hips, trying to appear immovable. "He isn't hard to work with. And I want him on board."

"You're being unreasonable, Kirk, and now I wonder why."

Kirk shifted his shoulders back. "You mean, you wonder if I'm taking him to bed and that's why I don't want to lose him."

Mendez's head tilted. "Kirk. You don't need to inform me of that."

"I don't particularly want to be your neatly packaged hero, Commodore."

Mendez tossed the stylus he'd been holding onto the desk. "I understand your personnel record a lot better now. Every time you get a commendation you end up with a demerit or even a demotion shortly after."

"Because I'm not anyone's puppet. Even 'Fleet's."

"Kirk." Mendez's voice grew soft. "Who said you were being used. Honestly man, you are reacting to something that doesn't exist. Yes, we want to show the galaxy that Starfleet and the Federation have ended this war. We do that by showing them the people who did it. Is there another way to show them? Go to earth. It's only two weeks, three at the most. Smile a bit. Give some live feed interviews. Then get back out into space. I'm sure your crew needs a break. Think of them."

"And the Vulcan?"

Mendez held up his hands. "I don't have any control over Vulcan's demands."

"Let me talk to the ambassador."

"Really, Kirk?"

"Yes." Kirk propped his hands on his hips again.

"What? Right now?" Mendez asked.

"Why not?'

Mendez bent over, put his hands on his desk. "You don't think we've been talking to him? Reassuring him that the minute we aren't actively at war, something will be done to recover their citizen? A young, untrained civilian, I might add."

Kirk also leaned on the desk, putting his nose inches from Mendez's. "If I don't have any influence, why are you planning to parade me around on earth?"

Mendez swiped at a switch on his desk. "Margo, open a channel to the Vulcan embassy for me."

A moment later her voice came back. "The connection is refused."

"See?" Mendez said. "That's where things lie. And we just reopened normal diplomatic channels days ago."

Kirk said, "The connection will look like it's coming from you. Have Margo put my id on it."

Mendez made a dubious face. "Really, Kirk?"

"Yes, really, sir."

The connection went through. Kirk turned the desk monitor around and took the visitor's chair. Sarek's face came up, looking more angular in anger.

"James. It goes without saying that I would like Spock returned."

Mendez put his hand to his cheek and turned away. He was off camera, thankfully.

Kirk sat back, relaxed a little. "He's unharmed and he's very useful. Are you sure you must have him back immediately?"

"Is he there now?"

"No, I'm in Commodore Mendez's office. Spock is on the Ranger. Last I saw, tearing apart a sensor console on the bridge."

Silence followed. Sarek's face didn't reveal his thoughts.

Kirk said, "I didn't convince Spock to do what he did. I didn't even know what he was going to do. I managed to save him, although that was a closer call than I would have liked. I've been making sure he's safe since then."

Sarek sounded disbelieving. "According to the feeds, you were just in a firefight with five other vessels, including a captured Starfleet vessel three times your size."

"Well. Yes. But we didn't take any significant damage."

"I stand by my assertion that you have not been properly protecting him and I fault you for instilling in him a sense of pride that makes it difficult to put him on a proper path."

"Ambassador, after a lifetime of you telling him he would always fall short, I told him he was very good at what he did. I refuse to apologize for that."

"Because you are human, and you do not understand."

Kirk leaned forward. "Spock is also human, and it is you who doesn't understand."

There was a pause. Sarek said, "We still demand his return." Another pause. "Now that you have said your piece."

"And if he refuses?"

"I don't consider his willingness relevant."

"Duly noted, sir."

"Are you signing off, Lt. Commander James Kirk? Or have you been demoted again?"

Kirk crossed his arms, but he couldn't hold back a grin. "I've been working on it. You'll have to ask the Commodore if I succeeded."

Mendez didn't react when Kirk glanced his way.

"I am signing off," Kirk said. "Please say hello to Amanda for me."

Sarek nodded, and the connection severed.

"Well. I guess I didn't know what I was expecting." Kirk pounded the arms of the chair once and stood up. He looked at Mendez. "Just so you understand, sir. It's not that all of Vulcan is demanding back one half-Vulcan, it's that the ambassador wants his over-protected son back."

Mendez seemed to be collecting himself. "That family runs Vulcan. They are about to be appointed a seat on the Federation Council." He waved his hand at the monitor. "And you deal with them like that. I don't care if you apparently know them personally, you don't deal with them like that."

"I'm a soldier sir, not a diplomat."

"And you are sleeping with the son. I don't even . . ."

"If I'm delivering Spock, I'm taking him all the way to Vulcan, or to meet his family ship, not dropping him at some outpost."

Mendez nodded slowly. "That's acceptable."

Kirk put his hands at his sides. "Was there anything else, sir? We have quite a bit of work to complete on the ship before pulling out again."

"You'll be sent an itinerary at about sixteen hundred hours. Don't have too many. Or talk to too much press once you've had too many."

"We won't be indulging until the work's done, Commodore."

"I'll be very impressed if that's the case, Commander."

On the bridge, everyone was bright-eyed, voices pleasant despite the teardowns in progress. Kirk crouched beside where Spock's legs came out from under the primary scanner panel.

Riley came up beside Kirk. "How did your meeting go, sir?"

"It's over with. I can say that for it. We've been ordered to earth for an extended time. Inform the crew."

Spock curled his head sideways out of the panel and fixed his gaze on Kirk.

"Bad news. We're ordered to take you home."

Spock nodded. "I assumed as much."

"Not going to put up a fight?"

"I suspect my family is making quite a bit of trouble with the Federation and they are in turn making trouble for Starfleet."

"Oh, yes."

Spock nodded again in continued confirmation. "And I also assume you already put up as much fight as is possible."

"I'd like to think so. Put the commodore's britches in a twist watching the fight I put up." Kirk's lips twitched repeatedly, either trying for a smile or with sorrow. He pressed them together to make them stop.

When the wash of emotion passed, Kirk said, "You're working too hard. Take a break."

Spock raised a doubtful brow.

"We have an entire department for this job. I insist. Come on." Kirk put a knee down for balance and gave Spock a hand getting out from under the panel. "I need to talk to you and I'm sure you haven't eaten enough today."

They sat in the mess area of the ship, which was unusually quiet. Perhaps the crew were starving themselves in anticipation of eating the better base food.

Kirk nibbled on a cube, not hungry. Things were going to change a lot after this. But right now he had Spock across from him, on his ship, and all he wanted to do was drink that in. Not eat, not think.

"I am curious," Spock said.

Kirk put his food down, wiped his fingers. "Yes?"

"Have you considered communicating with your mother?"

"You've been sending too many letters. And no, I haven't."

"My mother said that the earth news feeds were full of accolades for you. You do not think your mother would be proud of you?"

"It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with who controls my life. And you are making me badly need a drink after I coaxed my crew to abstain for just a bit longer."

"I see."

Spock finished his plate and clasped his hands in front of himself.

"I'm going to miss you," Kirk said. A vocal unsteadiness had sneaked up on him. Had he known it would, he wouldn't have spoken.

Kirk stood up. "We both have work to do."


	48. Unveiling

The ship's engines were still. A hum came from the ventilation system and faint clicks emanated from sensors and relays that normally weren't perceptible. The ship felt more like a building rooted to planet ground than a space vessel.

Kirk let himself into his cabin. Spock sat on his bunk with his scanner in pieces beside him.

"Did that break?"

"No, the sensor panel is fogging. The ship is more humid than it is designed for."

Kirk sat across from him, rested his hands on the sides of Spock's knees. Spock didn't react. He cleaned off a rippled lens and placed it back over the sensor package touching it only with the fine cloth he held.

Kirk said, "You could get some sealant from engineering. Keep the moisture out."

Spock shook his head. "Several of the sensors outgas whenever they are powered and that will fog the lens too. It has a coating already to resist moisture, but it is not one hundred percent effective."

Kirk waited, unmoving, while the scanner was reassembled. Nimble fingers snapped the electronic innards into the nicked and scratched case halves, and latched together the halves. He placed the scanner at arm's length beside him and looked at Kirk expectantly.

Kirk said, "I'm really weak right now. Just warning you."

Kirk shifted his hands to more firmly hold Spock's knees, enjoying the solidity of him. He slid forward to the edge of the bunk so his knees were clamped around Spock's knees, and slid his hands up the sides of Spock's thighs. 

"Is it all right with you that I'm weak?"

"You judged my situation correctly last time when I could not."

"Well, you aren't relying on me anymore," Kirk said. "And you barely do anything I say."

"I obey you ninety-one point four seven percent of the time."

"I'm trying to bed you here. Don't compute things."

"Acknowledged."

Kirk smiled painfully. Bowed his head. "I have to keep a piece of you back. I can't return all of you to Vulcan. If I do, I'll suffer regret that will haunt me."

"I do not wish for you to suffer in this way."

Kirk loosened his grip. "Maybe it was a mistake telling you what I was feeling. Don't agree to this for my sake."

Spock became thoughtful. "I will not."

"Promise me that you won't."

"But I would be promising for your sake. Is that different?"

Kirk thought he read something sly in Spock's expression. "It would be."

Spock nodded sideways. "I promise."

Kirk sighed, thought of how they had only a few days remaining after so much time together. They were a week from earth, but Sarek would send his insanely fast personal craft to meet them. Probably already had sent it.

"There haven't been many opportunities where one or both of us wouldn't be shirking duty by being distracted. But right now, we're docked, alongside an array of ships larger than us. There's nearly zero chance of an emergency that anyone will call on us to deal with." He smiled. "I can actually be hopelessly distracted for an entire night." 

Kirk put his left hand on Spock's cheek and leaned far over, knees pressed against the opposite bunk, to capture Spock's lips between his own. He felt a physical rush and pulled back, drew his lips in to taste them. Spock considered him calmly, waiting.

Kirk reached down to take up Spock's hands, at the last moment took his wrists instead. He'd almost forgotten as his desire took over. Spock raised a brow, but joined Kirk on the wider bunk, sat beside him, knees bumping.

Kirk held onto Spock's arms. "You matter more to me than my desire. Far more. But I also can't live with the kind of regret that I know is looming to hit me the moment you're gone. So, I'm being selfish."

Spock said, "I have been questioning lately if it was I who was being selfish."

"Right now, I'm sure it's me." Kirk slid his hands up Spock's forearms, inside his oversized uniform sleeves. "I've been doing a lot of things differently with you. For example, I have you in front of me, on my bed. We will likely not be interrupted. I want you dearly. And I'm talking to you."

Spock dropped his eyes, raised them again to study Kirk's face.

Kirk quirked his mouth wryly. "You matter so damn much. It has nothing to do with sex, but it does. Usually sex is a shortcut to temporary intimacy or just substitute intimacy. But this is about completely being with you because I can't bear not to be. Especially if we're going to be apart a long time."

Kirk tasted his lips again. "And to be completely honest with you, maybe it's about defying your father too. He's not getting all of you back, damn it."

"I truly do not think the peace of the galaxy rests upon my return. Even if my father implies it is so."

"The Federation isn't going to deny Vulcan anything reasonable right now."

Kirk reached up and found the seal at the collar of Spock's shirt, slowly pulled it open along the diagonal seam. He pushed the shirt down off Spock's arms and dropped it on the floor.

Spock said, "May I ask a question?"

Kirk laughed lightly. "Of course."

Spock's fur-outlined chest rose and fell. Kirk longed to run his fingers through the curls.

"Do you intend to please me as well as yourself?"

Kirk skimmed a hand over Spock's bare ribcage. "I do."

Kirk leaned in to kiss his lips again.

"I am concerned," Spock said the next chance he was given.

Kirk bent and kissed him on the collar bone. "About what?"

"About how I may react to such extreme intimacy. It is an unknown representing a risk I have difficulty accepting. You need not please me."

Kirk spoke between kisses on the tender bare skin just above Spock's chest hair. "You've seen my instincts at work. They tell me you are more human than you think. I'm willing to trust them."

Kirk slipped off his own shirt and slid his hands around Spock's ribs, enjoying the feel of his bare upper arms brushing springy chest hair. He returned to kissing Spock's chest while combing the cross of chest hair with his fingers. Spock's chest expanded and fell much faster than normal, like a human after a sprint.

"Spock, slow your breathing. The ship's air is oxygen rich for you."

Spock's breathing abruptly ceased. Kirk made his way up to the side of Spock's neck, opening his mouth wide to take in as much of his flesh as possible.

Spock covered Kirk's hand on his ribs with his own, stroked the back of his hand with his fingertips. "Your desire is rather strong."

Kirk lifted his head, stared into brown eyes, leaned into them. 

Spock returned this kiss, welcomed Kirk's tongue into his mouth. Kirk's erection rose as if in his tongue's place, pressed hard against the constriction of his pants. Kirk could feel Spock's rapid breath on his face. He pulled back. 

"Breathing. I really don't want to have to call Chapel up here for a case of hyperventilation. I think she'll ask questions."

Spock closed his eyes, slowed his respiration. 

"You all right?"

"I do feel the deleterious effects of excessive oxygenation."

"That's not what I meant. I meant are you all right with what I'm doing to you?"

Spock fell thoughtful long enough to make Kirk's heart race with worry.

"I wish I could be looking back upon this from the other side of it."

Kirk sat straight, let his hand slide down Spock's arm.

Spock said, "I dread what you may release in me. If you are correct and I am not Vulcan in this way, then I wish to know that with the benefit of the proof of hindsight." 

Kirk released him. Put his hands on his own thighs.

Spock lowered his head, steepled his fingers before him. 

His voice fell. "Quite dearly I wish to know this. I am envious of you in this the way you usually are of me with regard to sleep habits." 

Kirk sat still, waiting for Spock to make the next move. Spock raised his head and examined Kirk's eyes.

"You are so very human," Spock said.

"I would hope so." Kirk heard himself sounding coy and wished he hadn't.

Spock reached a hand up and touched Kirk's cheek, slid his hand over his ear. Kirk bowed his head to make it easier for Spock to latch his fingers firmly into the hair on the back of his head.

The weight of Spock's hand pulled Kirk forward. He rested his head on Spock's bare shoulder. His taut skin gave off a scent of amber and sage.

Spock spoke slowly. "If I am a slave not of my nature, but only of my flawed understanding of myself then I wish to know this. If so, I am wasting enormous energy resisting. And that is illogical."

Kirk rubbed his hands slowly around Spock's ribcage. Spock's breathing remained controlled. Kirk wrapped his hands around slender ribs and tugged as he tried to lay back. Spock resisted.

"I don't wish to harm you," Spock said.

"Spock, I'm not that fragile."

"You are injured."

"I'm not that fragile or that injured. I've healed." He held up his right arm, which had a constellation of yellow bruises shadowed in blue. "I've almost healed."

Spock's weight settled on him and Kirk put his arms around him, shifted his knees to let their legs alternate on the bed. Spock rested his head on the same pillow so his hot breath was on Kirk's neck.

The skin of Kirk's chest warmed almost uncomfortably. 

Kirk shifted his hands on Spock's back and closed his eyes. They had hours and Kirk floated in a calm wholeness. He let that overwhelm his desire for a while.

Spock lifted his head and lowered it again, placing his lips over Kirk's and kissed him with tentative movements of his mouth.

He pulled back, studied Kirk, who couldn't resist smiling at him.

Spock said, "That kiss did not arouse you in the same manner as the previous one."

"It was the tongue that did it."

"Was it?"

"It was. I can't help but imagine you doing that to other parts of me."

"Is that what you wish?"

Kirk's thickening penis pressed against Spock's pelvis.

Spock continued to stared down at Kirk. "Humans are unbelievably oversexed. It explains much. Actually, it does not. I am now surprised that the human social situation with regard to sex isn't a magnitude worse."

"You are over thinking it."

"I cannot help it."

Kirk smiled. "If you want to strip me down like a piece of the ship's equipment and see how I work, I'd deeply enjoy that. I get jealous of your hands being on everything on this ship but me."

That might have been too bold. Spock paused a long time before he said, "I see. That is an interesting analogy. But I am not certain I can take the proper actions from this point, useful analogy or not."

"You don't have to," Kirk said. He stroked Spock's back. His back was soft and taut; it was a nice combination. "We're just getting used to each other right now."

Spock's voice was in his ear. "I am not going to meet your expectations."

"I don't have any." Kirk's hands still stroked in long slow movements. "Just relax."

Spock's muscles released. His head sank on the pillow. 

The reality of Spock's weight settled into Kirk. His breath quickened. His gut fluttered in a way it hadn't since he was seventeen. He finally had this untouchable being in his arms.

Kirk's hands slowed and then stopped. His fingers moved in a gentle clasping motion. He turned his head and Spock's brown eyes flicked to his, inches away. Alert, observant, calculating. 

Kirk tipped Spock toward the wall so they were lying on their sides, legs tangled. Kirk rose up on one elbow, pushed Spock partly onto his back into the wall niche and kissed him. Pulled back, ran his fingers over the back of the hand Spock had resting on his abdomen the way Spock had done to him. Spock closed his eyes, looking not restful but as if he wanted his full attention inward on that sensation.

"Hands aren't the only parts of the body with a high concentration of nerve tissue." Kirk had the distinct sense of Spock's desire surging, although not physically as far as he could tell.

"Indeed not."

"All right if I continue undressing you?"

Spock nodded.


	49. Reward

Kirk slid his fingers inside Spock's waistband, unhooked his pants, slid his hands around the sides and pushed Spock's hips clear, left his pants around his thighs. Spock's eyes remained closed, body tense. Kirk again reminded himself that they had hours and there was no hurry except that inside himself.

He slipped a hand behind Spock's neck and kissed him softly on the lips, over his cheek, up to his brow. As he explored Spock's face with his mouth, Kirk ran the back of his hand along the furred midline of Spock's abdomen down to the denser hair around his genitals, stroked his flaccid penis. Spock made a small noise that could have been pleasant surprise, could have been distress.

"I don't know how I resisted for so long." Kirk put his hand on Spock's hip, waited for another sign. When Spock remained still, he said, "You all right?"

Spock opened his eyes. "Yes." His face was flushed and his pupils were dilated. "I am having difficulty overcoming years of practiced control over my reactions. Control that has long ago become involuntary."

Kirk massaged Spock's pectoral muscle, teased a nipple with his thumb. "What would you like me to do for you?"

Spock swallowed hard enough Kirk heard it. "If you continue to touch me, I can locate the involuntary controls in my mind that require release."

Remaining on his side, Kirk stripped off his own trousers and tossed them behind him on the floor. 

He shuffled closer and let their fronts touch lightly. Kirk's tumescence brushed Spock's soft groin.

Spock's eyes snapped open. His breathing sped up, slowed again. 

Kirk sat up to tug Spock's pants down off his legs, folded them once and tossed them on the other bunk. He lay beside him, nestling his shoulder into Spock's armpit, resting his head on his chest. He slid a languid hand down to Spock's genitals and entwined his fingers in them. Spock's torso twitched as if he'd been jolted with electricity.

Spock tipped his head in Kirk's direction and closed his eyes again. Kirk's fingers explored modest testicles in tight sacks, a penis capped by a glans with a curled lip. Kirk tugged on the flimsy shaft, squeezed the glans. Spock panted, slowed his breathing.

Kirk continued for long minutes, until Spock tossed his head side to side once.

"Can you talk to me?" Kirk said.

"I remain concerned. I do not know how I might react. It makes my controls considerably harder to release when it is irresponsible to release them."

"We have a lot of time. Just let it happen. Does this feel good?"

"There is no lack of pleasure. And I can also sense the pleasure you wish me to feel, it is quite an interesting juxtaposition."

Kirk kissed the soft rise of chest muscle under his cheek, caught Spock's nipple in his lips. 

Spock's voice was husky. "May I ask what you intend for me?"

"I don't make exact plans. I see what you like and don't and adjust accordingly."

Spock's stared up at the overhead. "Perhaps you should take your pleasure first."

Kirk stroked Spock's lower abdomen. "Relax, Spock." He kissed the nearest nipple again. "Do you ever fantasize?"

"I am capable, but doing so on this topic would be a most unwise drain on my controls. So no."

Kirk spoke between kisses. "Ever have a dream about sex?"

Spock was a long time replying and when he did his voice was quiet. "Yes."

Spock's penis twitched in Kirk's hand and he tilted his head back. 

"Let it come, Spock." Kirk tugged and squeezed. "Remember that dream. That was your body trying to find release."

Spock's penis swelled gradually. Spock tilted his head back farther, breathed through his mouth. His body went taut from his neck to his quadriceps. His erection rose up, filled Kirk's hand. Kirk used his fingertips to stroke the shaft, ran his fingertips in the lengthwise clefts. 

Spock's voice wavered. "I truly do not wish to hurt you."

Kirk rose up and shifted Spock's hips to get him out of the niche so he could straddle him. He trapped Spock's erection between their abdomens, letting his weight press down by degrees.

"You really think I'm fragile?" Kirk asked. "After everything we've been through?"

Spock opened his eyes, looked up at Kirk. "I know this is in contrast to how you view yourself, but yes. That is why I am not entirely trusting in your assessment that I will not harm you."

Kirk brushed Spock's hair back from his forehead. "I accept that. I want you badly enough, I don't care." He leaned closer, spoke directly into Spock's ear. "And I want to make you feel pleasure so intense that it overwhelms all of your control."

Spock's penis pulsed against Kirk's crotch. Kirk raised up his weight and shifted his hips forward and back so their erections slid along one another. Spock held perfectly still through this, head canted. 

"Feel good?"

Spock nodded. "Perhaps it is all right." He cleared his throat. "I remain highly aware of my surroundings."

Kirk slid his body down Spock's, kissing taut skin as he went. He nuzzled the furred base of the shaft, nibbled his way up to the tip of it.

Kirk pushed himself up. Paused. Spock hadn't moved. He may have stopped breathing.

"Still all right?"

Spock's voice seemed to come from far away. "Yes."

Kirk ran his fingertips up and down Spock's shaft. He squeezed harder by degrees. Spock's abdominal muscles began to stand out beneath his skin. His erection continued to stiffen, stood straight up from his pelvis with no curve to it. Kirk encircled the shaft just below the glans with his fingers and held it while he licked at the tip of it.

Spock drew in a ragged breath and again stopped breathing. Kirk put his mouth over the flaring glans ridge and stroked the shaft with his hand. Slow at first.

A sense of empty stillness overcame the sense of calm Kirk felt, as if Spock's spirit had retreated inside him so far he couldn't be reached any more.

Kirk squeezed harder, rasped his tongue more firmly over the shiftable, soft glans.

Spock breathed in sharply. "Stop."

Kirk lifted his head, released his stroking hold. 

"Stop," Spock said again, even though Kirk was no longer touching him intimately. "I do not like that feeling."

Kirk crawled up Spock's body, lowered his hip to recline beside him with a gap between them, kept his hands to himself. "What don't you like?"

Spock's lips moved a moment before he gave voice to an explanation. "It felt as if the foundation of my observable reality was going to drop out from beneath me. It was most unpleasant."

Spock's torso relaxed by degrees but his erection remained as ram rod straight as ever. Kirk ached to leave it unattended. 

"I expect that you were going to orgasm, Spock. That's the intent of the activity."

Spock swallowed. "There can be no pleasure in losing control in such a manner."

Kirk longed to touch Spock's arm, but didn't. He pressed his hand into the mattress instead. "Trust me. There is. The bottom only drops out for a few moments. More of you're lucky. Then comes the waves of pleasure."

Spock was relaxed now, except for his straining erection. Spock closed his eyes for half a minute. Nothing visibly changed.

"Spock. Will you let me show you what it's like? I can't bear to leave you hanging like this."

Spock sounded distant. "What do you propose?"

"Is it all right if I touch you? Press up against you so you can feel what I feel?"

Kirk shifted closer. Spock positioned his arm so it could go around Kirk's back when he lay alongside him. Kirk pressed his chest to Spock's side, rested his head on his shoulder.

Kirk tilted his hips outward so he could grasp his own penis. 

"You haven't answered," Kirk said.

Spock spoke to the overhead in a stilted voice. "What you propose is acceptable. I am somewhat concerned with many things, including my current lack of control over my arousal. I cannot back out of this state, seemingly."

Kirk rested his forehead against Spock's shoulder, closed his eyes, and stroked himself rapidly. He wasn't immediately aroused. He opened his eyes and stared at Spock's beautiful hungry erection. His own rose easily at the sight. 

He closed his eyes again. He was pressed bodily, naked, sweaty against the being he desired more than he ever had anyone else. The being he had been kept separate from by fate and duty. Spock's arm was around Kirk's back, hand pressed firmly against his spine. The taste of Spock's mouth still flavored Kirk's lips. 

Kirk pressed his lips to Spock's shoulder, tasted the resiny sage and clove oil of his skin, knew he'd feel arousal every time he did so from now on. He was close. His balls were pulled up tight, he felt a distended need at the base of his penis.

The fingers of Spock's other hand touched Kirk's neck, behind his ear. For a dizzy moment, he felt a doubling of his aching need that seemed impossibly untouchable. A long suspension of reality. Then he came. 

Kirk knew his own pleasure well enough, his hand and body kept on despite the distorted sensation of untapped need latching onto his mind. 

Kirk panted, swallowed hard, milked himself for the last throes of pleasure. His hand was bumping Spock's thigh every stroke, something he hadn't noticed until then. 

He should have been better prepared. Kirk rose up and went to the head for a warm cloth. He returned and cleaned off Spock's thigh. Spock's erection hadn't changed, but his body glistened now with a sheen of sweat.

Kirk put a hand on Spock's thigh. "How'd that feel?"

Spock nodded. He seemed almost groggy.

Kirk shifted his hand to Spock's lower abdomen. "Trust me to bring you through this, okay?"

"It is not lack of trust. I have my life in your hands most of the time, to some degree or another."

"What is it then?"

"It is simply the loss of my own control. It is most unpleasant. And unacceptable."

Kirk spread his fingers out, relaxed his hand on the soft flesh just northeast of Spock's jutting penis. 

Kirk said, "It is about trust because you aren't losing control. You are handing control to me."

Spock's brow furrowed. "I do not see it that way. I would be allowing you to trigger a basic biological function in my body that would initiate a cascade of responses, wholly within me, that neither you nor I will be able to control."

"See, that's not true. I will control them to some degree. I'm very good at this." Kirk bent to plant a kiss where Spock's pelvis bone stood out.

"I do not believe you." Spock sounded vaguely offended.

"Who is the expert here?"

Spock turned his head away. 

Kirk dropped his voice. "I'm afraid you might not have a choice. But if you want to try a cold shower, that's considered the gold standard cure."

Spock actually relaxed a bit. His right leg rolled outward as his muscles released. "That sounds most miserable. And I am concerned that this prolonged frustration may induce the violent state I am determined to avoid."

Kirk stroked the join between Spock's quadriceps and his abdomen. "Give yourself to me, Spock. I promise it will be all right. It's just a few seconds, and even though it feels like the bottom has fallen out, I'll be here bringing you through it. It will feel wonderful. I promise."

Spock stared upward, widened his eyes, blinked. Closed his eyes. 

Two long minutes passed. Spock nodded.

Kirk tried not to hurry, but he moved without hesitation to resume sitting beside Spock's thighs. He bent over and captured Spock's erection in his mouth. Spock let out a relieved moan that Kirk wished he had recorded. 

Spock's body grew wiry. His abdomen drew in. His upper back arched. He grew perfectly still and rigid. 

Kirk kept stroking, kept varying how his mouth and tongue moved. Spock's hips lifted off the bed and remained fixed in that position. He let out a low groan and his breathing became erratic but his hips still did not shift. He remained frozen most of a minute.

Spock gave out another moan and his body began relaxing, muscle by muscle until he lay lax. Kirk felt a single pulse in the shaft and tasted wild onion and salt on his tongue. He stroked rapidly as the erection he held began to lose definition.

Kirk sat up, but continued to stroke Spock's softening penis. Spock tilted his head to the side, face serene, senses entirely inward.

Kirk crawled up over him, bent to kiss his eyebrow. 

Spock's voice was even richer than normal. "As always, you were correct."

"I'm not always correct." 

Kirk lowered himself to lay beside him, knee bent so he could wrap his groin around one firm thigh. He fumbled for a blanket and pulled it over the both of them.

"Warm enough?"

Spock sounded distant. "Yes."

Kirk kissed the shoulder under his chin and rested his head down on the pillow. He was sucked down into sleep seconds later.

\-------- 8888 --------

Kirk raised himself to his elbow to look at the chronometer. It was oh seven hundred four. Spock lay with eyes half open. They flicked to Kirk immediately, indicating he had not been meditating.

Kirk looked down at Spock. "How are you doing?"

"I am well. I am contemplating the experience."

"Must be nice to have an eidetic memory for things like that."

"It does not function quite as well during such an experience."

Kirk dragged the back of a knuckle over Spock's cheek. "I'm glad to hear that. That way you'll want to repeat it."

"Eventually. Yes."

Kirk slid a knee over Spock's legs, raised his hips in a slow move to get on top of him. Bent over him, ran a hand over a wonderfully furred chest.

The comm chirped. Kirk rocked back to the side and reached up for the switch.

"Kirk here." He sounded perfectly normal, thankfully.

"Commodore Mendez's office requests a meeting, wants a tour of the ship."

"Not this minute, I hope."

The voice sounded amused. Kirk wasn't sure who it was. Given it was someone in bridge reserves it could be nearly anyone. "No sir. At oh nine hundred."

"That's still not a lot of warning, but I'll take it. Tell him we'll be ready. Kirk out."

Spock started to rise but Kirk restrained him, pushed him back, kissed his belly button. Sighed. Sat up and swung himself off the bunk.

"All right. Back to work."

Kirk was showered and in a clean uniform and standing with Spock beside the portal connecting to the station. They were no longer in repair dockage but they had been given the honor of having slip with a gangway.

Mendez was barely Kirk's height. He had two taller staff members with him, both attractive women. 

"Kirk." Mendez turned to Spock, who was in his non uniform uniform. "Mr. Spock, I presume." He turned and introduced his assistants.

Kirk said, "I apologize, Commodore, there's not a lot of personnel to arrange a greeting right now. I've released people to the station as departments finish up and everyone still on board, mostly engineering, is quite eager to finish up."

"Understood, Commander. I just wanted to have a look around for myself. Been reading your bridge logs and having a hard time believing you kept the ship whole." 

Kirk led him on a cursory tour. A lot of interior panels had been pulled to work on the ship and engineering as well as staff from the station were busy pulling wires, welding, replacing burnt out components.

They were exiting the bridge where engineering was running system checks when Mendez said, "Can we speak in private somewhere, Commander?"

"We almost have a conference room again." 

Kirk led the way. There were still two stacks of supplies in the corners, but there were chairs and a folded container propped up as a table. Mendez waved for his assistants to remain outside. Spock stood aside in the corridor with them, hands clasped behind him. 

Mendez turned. "Mr. Spock, I want a word with you as well."

Spock, with a humble bend to his back, stepped past Mendez's aides. The door closed behind him.

"I finished reading your all of your logs, Kirk. Spent two nights on them. Spent some time reading between the lines." He paced. "You and the other ships were left hanging. And I've not been able to get a decent answer why."

"Have you spoken to Commodore Stone?"

"A bit. No one trusts anyone right now."

"For what it's worth, I trust him."

"Good to know. He's in the same quandary I am which is if I take a leave to see what's going on, I have to turn things over to someone. And right now I don't like that idea. Both of us, Stone and myself, are each overseeing an active border with a no mans land that we must monitor without fail. I can't shirk that duty for some politics in the core. Not involving something as absurd as the chance of war with Vulcan. Which I can't believe could really happen."

"I understand sir. And I wish I had your optimism."

"Hm. Well, you will have to throw yourself into the fray on earth and see for yourself how wild the idea really is. I wish you luck at that. That said . . ." Mendez reached into his pocket and drew out a velvet box. "I have some discretion in my post at recognizing service and after reading your log, I felt the need to send your erstwhile contractor off with a few items to remember us by. There aren't a lot of options for recognizing civilian service, but there are a few." 

He snapped the box open. Inside was a small blue ribbon hanging from a starburst with so many rays it appeared to be a chrysanthemum, and a disk with overlapping heartbeat pulses of various races inscribed on it. He held the box open in front of Spock.

Mendez said, "I don't feel like I should rightly pin them on that uniform you are wearing. Especially since you'll have to leave it behind."

Kirk took the medals from the box and held them out. Spock put his hand up and accepted them, stared at them glittering in his palm.

"Thank you, Commodore," Kirk said.

"If you were in 'Fleet you'd have been decorated for your actions. Seems only fair to arrange something, albeit, minor citations for those usually a bit farther from the fray."

Spock nodded distractedly. 

"Too bad we won't see you in this year's academy class, Mr. Spock," Mendez said.

"We might, Commodore," Kirk said.

"Don't make more trouble, Kirk," Mendez snapped. "I just got the last trouble sorted."

"It has nothing to do with me," Kirk said.

"Yeah, I bet it doesn't." He closed the box and moved to the door. "Kirk, take care on earth. Check in with me, if you would. And best of luck to you, Mr. Spock."

They escorted the Commodore off the ship then stood alone by the gangway. Spock still had the medals in his hand. Kirk held his hand out for them, looked at the backs of them.

"I don't recognize these, I'll confess. Pulsar Award for Preservation of Lives. Citation for Civilian Valor in Deep Space." He handed them back. "Congratulations, Spock."

"Given your collection, I credit your bad influence."

Kirk laughed. "Better keep that humor under wraps at home."


	50. Spock's Story

Kirk put a hand behind Spock's arm and led him back toward his quarters. "Since we've toured the ship already this morning, I need some breakfast."

Kirk took Spock to his quarters and fetched meals. When he returned, Spock had removed the uniform and sat with the white robe loosely around him. His chest had a green flush, which made Kirk warm inside his uniform. He handed Spock a plate and sat beside him with his own. He ate hungrily.

Kirk set his empty plate aside, brushed off the crumbs. He watched Spock's fastidious eating for a few minutes.

Kirk said, "Is there someone you can talk to on Vulcan? I'm worried about things you aren't willing to tell me. I'm hoping you can tell someone, even if it isn't me."

Spock stopped eating. Kirk silently kicked himself for his poor timing and took Spock's plate and set it with his own.

Kirk sat closer so their legs were touching. He took a deep breath. "Spock, what happened on Gatling Outpost?"

"I do not wish to further burden you, given your duties."

Kirk held up his hands. "Do I seem burdened at the moment?" 

Kirk softened his voice. "Spock, watching you suffer without having any way to help you is much more of a burden."

He clasped his hands in his lap and leaned into Spock with his shoulder. "I know you aren't used to having someone close to you. And I understand it's personal. But if it will help you in any way to tell me, please try to."

Kirk stared at the floor a long minute. Spock shifted away from his contact, sat up straight.

Kirk sighed, spoke into the silence. "Spock. What happened to you before you made it to the Militants?"

Spock closed his eyes for long moments. He breathed in and tensed up, bit his lips.

When he did speak, his voice was quiet. "On Gatling Outpost I was met by my brother."

Kirk considered that while waiting for more. "That, on the face of it, doesn't sound terrible."

Spock started to speak, shook his head, fell still. Kirk waited again.

"When's the last time you saw him?"

"I was eight in Vulcan years." Spock's voice had gone flat. 

"Why the long gap?"

"He was exiled from Vulcan."

Kirk rubbed his chin, tried to keep his heart rate in check. "Why?"

Again the recitation mode. "He has an extremely powerful mind and unmatched telepathic skills, which happens in our family every so many generations. But unlike past ancestors of such skill level, who entered the temple life and mastered their disciplines there, he uses this capability for his own personal ends. He is unscrupulous and manipulative. He was deemed dangerous and was exiled."

"Why did he pick you up? He has some connection to the Militants?"

"Some connection, yes. He manipulates them to do as he wishes when it is useful to him. He doesn't not identify with them. He simply uses them."

Kirk snapped his fingers. "Zuram knew of your relationship. He worried what you might say to your brother about the mission failure." Kirk tilted his head back. "Have I got that right?"

"I can think of no other explanation."

"So, your brother picked you up from the station. And then what?"

Spock's head bowed. He swallowed hard. "He tested me using his powers of emotional manipulation to verify that I was honest in my intentions to join the Militants. I was prepared to deceive an ordinary Outlier Vulcan. To face my brother was my worst nightmare taking shape as reality." 

"Did you deceive him?"

"Apparently. My shock and terror kept him amused while I managed to collect my own disciplines, which are not Vulcan ones, but those of my own making. I was lucky in that he wanted to believe me. And he was certain he knew me to the core. I think that is the only reason I survived."

Spock steepled his fingers, gave a sigh of defeat. "When I was six, I learned to fear him. He began to practice his burgeoning skills on me. Knew every emotional weakness I had, made certain they remained weaknesses that he could use. I could not speak ill of him to anyone, certainly not our father.

"He was sent away to various strict temples several times over the next two years. The break from his presence was always overshadowed by the horror of the prospect his return. Until the authorities exiled him, and he was never mentioned again, to my great relief as a child. I wished only to forget him."

Kirk held off on touching Spock with his hands, sensing he wanted to remain aloof. "How old is your brother?"

"He is twenty seven in Vulcan years."

"So, after it was clear what he was, I'm guessing your father still wanted progeny and chose a human mate the second time to dilute the next generation's preternatural abilities. But you still have some unusual abilities, even with your mixed blood."

"Yes. Something I did not understand until my brother mocked me with the information."

"Mocked you?"

"My uniqueness as a half human was merely a necessary convenience. I was born crippled intentionally."

Kirk put a hand on Spock's arm. "I think you are overreaching. But I realize that you are distressed so I won't argue the point. But do keep in mind I said so, please."

"How would you interpret it?"

"I think your parents love each other. The other selection criteria ceases to matter at that point."

"I see. I believe the human term hopeless romantic applies here."

"Well, that probably would be me." Kirk smiled weakly. "But what happened to your brother's mother?"

"She died unexpectedly."

"That doesn't sound good. And you are correct, this explains your father much better. He needs to control you. He must be smarting pretty badly at failing in that."

Spock didn't reply. Simply bowed his head.

Kirk let go of Spock's arm. "So, you spent about a month with your brother?"

Spock spoke slowly. "Yes. Constantly vigilant of any lapse in my story or my emotions. Fortunately, he was less interested in me than in impressing me. He was extremely pleased to have an audience to appall. I was a kind of stand-in for my father."

Kirk said, "I see why finally joining a Militant ship was a relief to you. And you had cachet with them, through your brother."

"I was almost entirely unquestioned. But I was quite mentally fatigued by the time I was assigned to the flagship. Fortunately, I could use that to support my story of having less than average technical knowledge."

"You succeeded in the end. But where is your brother now?"

"I do not know."

"What kind of ship does he have?"

"He travels in a converted cargo area of a Tellarite rapid courier vessel. It is heavily shielded and his hosts will sacrifice anything for him. They are emotional slaves to him."

Kirk stood up. Spock sat with his fingers uncharacteristically loose and contorted in his lap. Kirk paced from the door to the cabin to the door to the head and back. He rubbed his chin.

"I'm sorry to continue with this when I'm sure you're ready to drop it." 

Kirk stopped and put his hands on Spock's shoulders. The Vulcan's smooth hair glowed blue in the overhead lights. His shoulders appeared bony and vulnerable. 

"You said your brother was using the Militants. What did he use them for?"

Spock sat up a little, Kirk slid his hands down to the sides of his arms and held on as Spock went on haltingly. "He needs chaos to operate freely. If Starfleet is busy with other troubles he can more easily do as he pleases. He was encouraging the Militants to attack targets of more symbolic importance than they might otherwise have, to leave evidence of cold hearted violence, which Commander Zuram failed to understand was not in his best interest."

"Did Zuram really believe he could chase the Federation away from Vulcan?"

"If the monetary cost became too high, then logically, the Federation should disassociate itself from Vulcan. Yes."

"Boy, he doesn't understand humans." Kirk let go of Spock. "Your brother understood things would escalate."

Spock breathed in deeply. Nodded. "Despite insisting repeatedly that he does not care about Vulcan, he showed signs of desiring revenge."

"He can manipulate Vulcans and Tellarites. I assume humans too?"

"Vulcans are more difficult for him, but he enjoys the challenge of them. Humans are especially easy for him, to the point of eliciting boredom. He identifies the pain that drives them, makes it orders of magnitude worse, relieves it, then threatens to unleash it again. That is sufficient for nearly anyone to bend to his will."

Kirk stared at him. His chest had gone icy. "The hell, Spock."

Spock looked up.

"Your brother would probably like for the Federation to go to all out war with Vulcan."

Spock nodded crookedly. "Yes, I expect he would."

Kirk backed up, leaned on the pulled out desk, stared up at the overhead. He grew acutely aware of the lack of engine hum, the persistent noise of the air circulation blowers. 

Kirk said, "He wants to accomplish something grand, something heinous, so he just converts a few lieutenants to the cause, followers who will execute his will. Who might even secretly want what he wants, but were kept in check by social propriety up until then. And they draw in a few more, all while appearing otherwise normal. Until suddenly madness is happening and everyone seems to be part of it, on the wrong side."

"If I may," Spock said, "I believe it is you who are overreaching now."

Kirk exhaled. Brought himself back to the present. "Does your brother ever visit earth?"

"He did not do so while I was with him. But in theory he is capable. His host ship is above suspicion the way it is licensed."

"All this time I've been suspecting the colonists of infiltrating command. Now I wonder." Kirk rubbed the back of his neck. "What kind of side effects would be observable in any given individual he's controlling?"

"Almost none besides any selective actions they would be required to take to remain in his good stead. The person in question may appear happier most of the time, having been relieved of an emotional burden. But it would depend upon how much pressure the individual was under to behave in an uncharacteristic manner."

Kirk snapped his fingers. "Commodore Stone said everything seemed fine at command at a personal level. 'Too fine,' was his quote."

"It would be most difficult for my brother to get the proper access. He is not one who blends in well with human society. Or any society."

Kirk rubbed his knuckles over his lips. "He doesn't have to get at a lot of people. Not if the Federation is already on the cusp of doing what he wants." Kirk huffed. "Here I didn't want to go to earth. Now I can't bear the wait to get there. I need to see for myself what is going on."

\-------- 8888 --------

They walked in a pack with Spock in the center. He wore his usual engineering-red uniform shirt with no insignia on it, but recognizing that took extra attention. He blended in well with the group. The base was busy and few singled them out, or when they did, it was shouted after they passed. Thanks and expressions of job well done.

In the pub, they selected a large round table next to the wall farthest from the door. Kirk put Spock on the inside seat where he didn't have to watch his back. He had no sense of what the risks might be to him here on base and preferred not to think about it and enjoy himself.

Another table was pulled up next to the first. Someone put a recorder in front of Kirk when he turned around.

"Curious what your thoughts are, Commander," said a tall man in a showy suit.

The barkeep came rushing over, waving a white towel. "No press in here. Out! Out! I call base security you come back."

They settled into seats and drinks arrived without them ordering. Kirk pushed the most colorful one to Spock.

Kirk waited for everyone to get a glass if not a seat. Raised his glass. "Everyone. Job well done."

A chorus of cheers went up. Kirk swallowed half his drink. It went down cold and bittersweet.

"Drink up," Kirk said to Spock when he didn't touch his. "Last chance, I'm afraid."

The officers and crew fell to easy conversation, retelling of the last battle, gossip about what was happening elsewhere. 

Riley leaned toward Kirk. "So, we taking him home? Spock, that is."

"Yes."

Riley leaned across Kirk to say to Spock, "How much trouble are you going to be in?"

"I am still in trouble for my previous transgression."

"Oooooh," Riley said. 

To keep his own misery at bay, Kirk said to Spock. "I did tell your father I didn't approve of the way he treated you."

"You what?" Riley said with relish.

"Did you?" Spock said.

"I did. I'd already lost the argument. Thought I'd make the best of it."

"And?" Riley said, giggling.

"Oh, he hit back. Asked if I'd been demoted yet." Kirk took a sip of his drink. "He's not one to be tussled with. And now Commodore Mendez thinks I'm a loose cannon."

The press would come in the door, record the room and be shooed out again as soon as they tried to ask questions of the crew seated at the tables closest to the door.

Riley followed Kirk's gaze to where the most recent set of reporters were arguing against their eviction, recording all the while. Riley looked between them and Spock. 

"You're doing this intentionally. Making him look like crew."

"I have to keep an eye on you, Riley. You're smarter than you let on."

"Uh oh," Riley said, "I think they're interviewing Glissen outside."

Kirk finished his drink. "She can handle herself. They freed the crew of the Sanchez and she can brag about that for as long as they'll listen. Let me know if she looks like she wants rescue."

"How will I know?"

"She'll glance over here looking like she hopes someone will interrupt."

"Right. Need another?" Riley asked.

"Another ten."

"One at a time, sir. You'll get there."

Riley turned to signal the barkeep and Kirk squeezed Spock's arm. He was feeling increasingly desolate. He let go before Riley turned back.

"You aren't drinking, Spock," Kirk said.

Spock took a sip, appeared to have trouble swallowing. 

Kirk gave him a pained smile. Speaking too low for human ears, Kirk said, "I'm going to miss you."

"Really miss me?" Spock quoted Kirk from the first time they parted. His gaze had taken on a coy glitter.

Kirk bent over his nearly empty drink. He felt hot and tingly and distressingly amused. "Don't do that to me."

Spock raised a brow, and bent to sip his drink again. Riley slipped Kirk a fresh drink. Kirk sucked down half of it through the straw.

Riley said, "I think Glissen needs rescue. Sorry sir. Want me to go?"

"No, I will."

Kirk climbed up on his chair to get out of the crowd. He stepped across two other chairs to get to the edge of the group and landed lightly on the floor.

Glissen was glancing back as Kirk exited the bar into the wide main corridor of the starbase.

The press converged, asking questions. Kirk listened to them, gauging how much was leaked by what was asked. Less than he feared. He heard nothing about the virus and only vague questions about the confusion at Starfleet Command.

He picked out a question that was close to what he wanted to say. 

"You asked if I think the war is really over. I think it's more important to ask where we're going next because that determines the answer to your question." Beside him, Glissen stepped back, assumed a parade rest pose just behind his left shoulder. Kirk went on, "The Federation is a big place, with lots of different peoples in it. We have to make sure people with grievances can't get the support of their fellow citizens to use violence to get their point across. We need to marginalize that option.

"And the Federation needs to pay more attention to its periphery. We have a lot of far-flung worlds in our family now. Their needs have grown faster than our systems have for addressing those needs. We need to make sure everyone feels included, even at the cost of our own pride. The core of the Federation assumed that Starfleet can always protect it, and that we don't have to go out of our way to address what's happening at the edges, but like all societies, how we treat those on the periphery, how we bring them into the family, defines who we are."

Kirk glanced back into the bar. His crew were hunched over drinks, leaning into conversations, kicked back and laughing. Spock felt his attention and raised his head. His eyes were intensely affectionate, even though it didn't show on his expression.

Kirk turned back to the press who had started asking questions again. Someone asked what he thought Starfleet could do better.

"Everyone needs to navel gaze," Kirk said. "There are no exceptions to that. We can get beyond this war and come out stronger than we were, tested and proven that we are truly a Federation. We do that by finding our common humanity and moving forward."

END OF PART 1 - CONTINUED IN PART 2: Kirk's War


End file.
